Parks & Pink

I don't know if you've been watching any of the new Ken Burns documentary on the US National Parks or not...but if you haven't, I'd recommend you check it out.

The imagery, in HD, is something to behold; but what really is remarkable to me is the writing. The words, as spoken, provide a link to my past and tease out some powerful emotions stowed away inside of me.

Everyone has their recollection of their "family vacations" of their youth; and, whether you are like the Griswolds, or the Willett's - there will undoubtedly be some vivid memories founded in those experiences.

For me, watching Burns' film (I just got done watching an episode a few minutes ago...) put me back in time. I can remember one of our treks in a 198X chevy econoline conversion van where we hit yellowstone, teton, mesa verde, among other national parks. I'm pretty sure we were going to a bike race(s), but nonetheless, I hold those national parks experiences near and dear...

yeah, I'd have to say that most of my fondest/most vivid memories have an element of nature that are connected, or attached to those experiences. Some of them involve the national parks as mentioned above, but most of them fall outside that realm. The commonality, though, is nature...the elements...I guess there is something to be said for what nature represents (to me, anyway) in those situations. It's something that cannot be controlled. It is something that is just endured. Persevered. Survived.

Y'know, adventures suck while you are having them...seek out those adventures, eh?

One of the most epic bike rides I ever did was on a mountain bike (a fuji suncrest rigid deal I bought in 1990 for commuting to class...) - it was the dead of winter in the inland northwest. I forget the details, but I remember the feelings. The sensations. The two guys I did that ride with.

What's your most epic ride that has an element of "nature" tied to that memory?

Oh geez, now I'm just ramblin'! :-) Let's move on...

Pink:

Yeah, in case you missed it, October is breast cancer awareness month. It's pretty amazing to wrap your melon around how many people are personally touched by breast cancer... My family has been touched by it. My friends have been touched by it.

In order to raise awareness, October is the month to sport your pink! If you have any concerns of "manly-ness" and pink, take heart that the NFL is going pink!

Here's my way of doing my part to raise awareness during breast cancer awareness month...y'know, this is a bike related blog and all! ;-)



That's some frilly pink, eh?! That thing is so awesome - I was able to cram a spare tube, a multi-wrench and a couple co2 cartridges into this compact bag...more importantly, though, I get lots of weird looks and it's a great conversation starter. A great way to raise awareness, IOW!

I met up with the guy who is responsible for that bag at interbike a couple weeks ago, and he kicked down this bag for my wife...but I'm sportin' this bag for the month of october...at least! :-)

What are you doing, via "pink", to raise awareness this month?

peace,

-k

da Vinci Got it Right! (and so did the guys behind Mercury, Gemini & Apollo)

Back in probably 1998 or so, I was fortunate enough to walk the halls of the Louvre in Paris, France. I’m not a huge art historian, though; I would characterize myself as one who enjoys looking at art – more for the possibility of finding something I “like” more than anything else. I mean, I can’t talk intelligently about art (I did get an “A” in art history at Washington State University – but getting an “A” in “art” in inland Washington State ain’t sayin’ much, is it!), nor do I really care to, to be honest…but, when I see something I like, well, it strikes an emotional chord within me. It resonates a bit, and I can appreciate that. I reckon I become attached to that kind of feeling and really pay attention when those sort of feelings come a bubblin’n up.

I can’t really explain what I like in art – maybe it’s like “porn” – y’know, I can tell you when I see it! D’oh! Hey, this is a family show! ;-)

I like this (yeah, film is art, eh?) :



And this:

the persistence of time

and not so much this

…but hey…that’s one of Leonardo daVinci’s most famous pieces!?! Well, yeah, maybe I’m tainted by the context within which I experienced the painting of the Mona Lisa. Y’see, in the Louvre, everyone goes to see the Mona Lisa (or so it seems)…and thus, the context in which I experienced that painting was not appealing to me…and, that’s probably what I hang onto when thinking about the “mona lisa”. For me, that painting is attached to “lots of people acting like crazed tourists”. I’m not so into that, and so, yeah - that kind of deal sticks with me…

I much preferred the setting of the Borghese Museum in Rome:

Fewer people by design/coincidence (hey, y’know context matters when it comes to art!)…crazy detailed sculpture and some fine art at the Borghese in a much more intimate setting…

But really, when it comes to sitting on a bike…I gotta agree with da Vinci:



…seems he got things about right when sketching out his bike design concepts, what, 500 years ago or so? :-)

I see a little bit of a blend of old-school European seat tube angles and “new-school” (is there anything new school in bikes?) softride in that sucker, pictured above, eh?

The way I experienced the da Vinci exhibit here at the San Diego Air and Space Museum was pretty neat. We basically had the whole exhibit to ourselves for the better part of an hour. Most of the other folks had probably already seen these da Vinci replicas, but for Selene and me, it was a first. So, we enjoyed the intimacy of the moment offered to us and dove into the true “da Vinci Experience”.

The guy was pretty amazing – he was so far ahead of his time mechanically, it’s not even funny. Who’d a thunk it? I mean, he had ball bearings figured out in the late 1400’s:



And his breadth of ideas and innovation, when experiencing it in the museum exhibit, was a bit bewildering to be honest.

The real reason, though, we were there at the museum, was to pay tribute to Kennedy’s vision, in a way:



…to pay tribute to some of the greatest heroes America has known – y’know, they were before the steroids in baseball/football or EPO in cycling era! ;-)

The guys of this era put forth a bold goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the 60’s. They took the courage, inspiration, and hope proffered up by Kennedy…and got the job done. The men we saw…the men we met...the men we shook hands with:




…last weekend were the men that stepped up and met those great expectations to be pioneers, leaders, heroes. They were the men that tackled the challenges that they had no concept of, but met those challenges with hope, vigor and unwavering perseverance and faith.

Undoubtedly, there were sacrifices and setbacks along the way to the moon
(Apollo 1) that weighed heavily on them and the United States:



…but, just as Kennedy prophesized in 1962 in the speech linked above:

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things… Not because they are easy…but, because they are hard…Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills…Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept…One we are unwilling to postpone…And one we intend to win.”

It is important to note that the Apollo 1 disaster, and all those learning opportunities it presented…ultimately begat the Apollo 7 triumph.
It’s even possible to imagine that without the Apollo 1 fire, we might not have taken Gene Kranz’s words in response to that incident to heart:

“Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it.
…
“From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: 'Tough' and 'Competent.' Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills.”

So, with Apollo 1, and Apollo 7, and Gene Kranz’s sage words, we finally were able to raise the level of our game and realize the Apollo 11 achievement:



…and I think it is really important to note that none of the Apollo missions could have been accomplished without the progression of the Mercury and Gemini projects.

All of these missions were intertwined and linked. Each one building upon the other in lockstep.

Hey, y’know the guy with the texas twang barkin’ out

“60 seconds” and “30 seconds” and “Roger, twang…tranquility. We copy you on the ground. We got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

…in the closing seconds of that video about Apollo 11 linked above? Well that gentleman was seated at our table last weekend on the deck of the USS Midway (the aircraft carrier that featured heavily in the Vietnam war).



Brigadier General Charles Duke is his name, and he’s a real American hero, I reckon. We were honored to shake his hand, and to hear his stories and perspective that evening. Did you know that he was in his mid 30’s during that Apollo 11 mission where he was CapComm (capsule communicator) in Houston? And, at that age, he was one of the senior members of the whole deal?



Can you imagine being given the responsibility to make the call on whether or not to abort a landing attempt during Apollo 11 in your mid 30’s with less than 60 seconds to go until touchdown?

Y’know…that 60 second call that Mr. Duke was barkin’ out in the video above was really a “60 seconds of fuel remaining” call…and not a 60 seconds to touch down call…y’see, Neal Armstrong was lightin’ up the thrusters, floatin’ across the surface of the moon trying to find a safe place to touch down after the initial spot didn’t look so hot. When Charles Duke said “30 seconds”, that meant there was less than 30 seconds of fuel left…And they still had to get off the moon! Talk about pressure, responsibility, faith…no wonder there wasn’t much breathing going on amongst mission control in Houston.

Luckily, the eagle landed safely, and the rest was history so to speak…

Yeah, Neal Armstrong was the first man on the moon...And the guy who was guiding him down in the audio above, Charles Duke – wound up being the lunar lander pilot during Apollo 16 and, ultimately, the tenth man to set foot on the surface of the moon. Pretty cool, eh?

Lots of cool stories were told during the festivities at the museum on Friday night (the evening before our Midway experience)…but probably the one story that sticks out the most to me was told by Glynn Lunney. He was second shift flight controller while Gene Kranz was the first shift director of flight control in Houston during the Apollo 13 mission, and he featured heavily during events of the Apollo 13 mission:



Lunney’s thoughts on “trust”, that he shared with us that evening, between the government, NASA, and his bosses (you have to remember, that Lunney and his crew were all in their mid to early 30’s/late 20’s at the time doing something that had never been done before…) were pretty inspirational.



Here’s how I remember the Apollo 13 anecdote that he shared with the attendees…
…as he took over from Gene Kranz a little less than an hour after the oxygen tanks “blew”, he and his team were delegated to find a solution to one of the tasks essential to getting the crew back home – I want to remember that it was the powering up sequence of the lunar module after it had been powered down. He and his team had explored every possible avenue for a significant period…they left no stone unturned…finally, he and his team had created a “book” (an operational manual detailing a checklist to proceed through) on the sequence and were prepared to present it to the big wigs of NASA.

Lunney recalled for us, that he, as a 32-ish year old was sitting in front of a panel of his elders going through what they proposed to do…when he was completed with the briefing, he recalled…the room sat in silence until one of his bosses began to speak…Lunney told us that, inside, he was fully prepared to hear this senior administrator start picking apart his team’s plan with a bunch of questions and whatnot…instead, there was only one statement from one of his “superiors”:

“What can we do to support you and your team?”

As an engineer, let me tell you that I think that’s pretty crazy to see that type of behavior in such a high-risk, high-pressure situation very often. It’s a remarkable story. The point, as I saw it, was that you just don’t see that kind of thing these days in industry, or the government…But really, the Lunney story is just a great story about trust.

That senior administrator knew his limitations in the situation, delegated responsibility to the subject matter experts, and then let go…the administration had forced their team to choose a path. It seems to me, as if when we are forced to make a choice on our own, that decision making process is pretty powerful – it is the best way to learn, I feel, since one is forced to consider and weigh the consequences and potential outcomes. And ultimately accept responsibility for the path taken…I can see how this type of decision-making process is ultimately the job of any triathlon/bike racing “coach” in the industry today. The job of these coaches should be to coach us into making better decisions for ourselves…If your bike racing coach doesn’t have that as one of his priorities in the relationship with you, well then, I reckon I’d suggest finding a new “coach”. There are plenty of good coaches out there.

I feel that being encouraged to make our own decisions and choices when faced with new challenges is also the demarking line between being “on board” and being “fully engaged”. Anyone can be “on board”, but being “fully engaged” is where it’s at, I reckon.

There’s a lesson for the wannabe “managers” of the business world, and “coaches” of the bike racing world in that Lunney anecdote, eh?

All in all, a great weekend – one definitely for the memory banks. It was inspirational. It made me think a bit more deeply about how I choose to go about things. The experience re-assured my sense that, given the opportunity, people will ultimately step up to a challenge and prove that they have the right stuff to get the job done…

Peace,
-k

...preferably with links!

I read this one in the print mag of ESPN awhile back and got a good chuckle out of it:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4137488

the chuckle was more from the realization that, yeah, that's true! I think the phenomenon of the "stars/sports celebrities" trying to control their image isn't new, but what is new is in how they are currently doing it. No longer are their PR folks on the front line, but rather, the athletes themselves are on the front line (but is someone pulling their strings and advising what they ought to be talking about?).

The celebs are cutting out the middle man (that would be the mainstream media), and "massaging" public opinion how they see fit through the many tools of the new Web 2.0. It's an odd behavior these celebs are exhibiting, some might liken it to the celebrities "biting the hand that gave them what they have", so to speak.

The celebs have historically relied on the media to provide entertainment content and also sell the ads to the advertisers who then ultimately pay the salaries of the celebs who shoot balls, throw balls, hit balls, kick balls (oh, that didn't come out right! LOL!) - and yeah, pedal bikes! It's kind of incestuous, now that I think about it, eh? it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out...

I wonder if the next job of the PR/agent firms will be to arrange to sell things or broker deals through/via the celeb athlete platforms/websites/social network/web 2.0 portal of choice? Is that already going on?

but I digress - it's happening I think, whether we like it or not; whether we think it is the way it ought to be, or not. The interwebs are changing the way things are done, and I'm curious to see how the mainstream media will find a way to co-exist and leverage these new web 2.0 internets deals. They already are leveraging it, though, it seems...

It was pretty funny, actually, I read that article above and not soon after that, I was watching sportscenter - I think it was after LeBron made "the shot":



y'know this is the shot that Craig Ehlo (go Cougs!) was silently thankful for after having to re-live Michael Jordan replays for two decades...



Instead of interviewing celeb athletes after the Cav-Magic game, though, the guys on Sportscenter (or more than likely the research staff) just logged onto Kobe's twitter account and relayed kobe's thoughts to the world: "Wow" I think is what Kobe had to say about "the shot".

There were several other comments from pro "ballers" the crew at ESPN relayed over the air from blogs, tweets (is that how you say it), and whatnot. So, yeah, the beauty of the interactive web is that now there is more access, but the downside is that there is less control/objectivity of the content it seems. But since hapless fools like yours truly keep watching TV, reading print mags, etc... everyone seems to win, eh?

I mean, the celebs have control of how they wish themselves to be seen, the media gets content they might not have otherwise gotten (or would have had to pay more for) and dipsticks like me get to hear what kobe thinks - or is that really kobe?

;-)

what the heck does this have to do with bike racing? Well, I was watching the Giro the other day on Universal Sports, and saw what seemed like a four minute advertisement, errr, or was that a LANCE infomercial - after the long stage prior to the second rest day. I thought to myself, huh, I wonder what the PR company got out of that deal (a deal that was made possible by LANCE's refusal to speak to the media on the media's terms for the past week or so)...

Maybe LANCE's crew stumbled on to a new way to make money or promote their for profit website??? Will we see more access to this celebrity in the future, or will we have to wait for the "tweet" video that gives the celebs the control they desire?

But hey, if I keep watching universal sports, I've only got myself to blame - and maybe that's how business will be done from this point forward. Somehow, though, it just doesn't seem "right" to do it the way LANCE.com has done it during the Giro - y'know, the celebs "biting the hand that made them", so to speak.

Anyway, an interesting thing to watch and be aware of from this point forward, eh?

I can't wait to see how the interwebs will shape the world in the future. It'll be fun to watch it all evolve...but I have just one request for the internets, can you make the recap short, bulletted, and...preferably with links!

Chip Woolley, Michele Ferrari, and "if you can race it, I'll eventually watch it"

Chip Woolley is the trainer of Mine that Bird, who was the surprise 50-1 odds winner of the Kentucky Derby a few weeks back, in case you were wondering.

Michele Ferrari is the guy who warns us of the perils of orange juice.

Now, I'm not an historical horse racing fan, but after I read an intriguing article in the print edition of ESPN magazine while chowing down on a bowl organic pumpkin seed granola mixed in with some honey nut cheerios (how's that for a weird combination of earthy-ness and mainstream-ness), I DVR'd the coverage of the Preakness this weekend as I was heading out the door on a Home Depot supply run.

Yeah, I think it sucks when some dubious trainers and doctors do what they do in the horse racing world and also in the bike racing world. The difference in my mind, though, is that the dipstick bike racers have a choice in whom they trust, and what they choose to stick in their bodies. The horses don't have that choice. They just run. And, as the espn article above reveals, sometimes the horses do stuff beyond what they're really capable of withstanding from a darwinian perspective.

The consequences of an illicit approach to winning are also real in the bike racing world. Just ask the families of those cyclists that gave their lives in the late 1980's.

For whatever reason, though, I found myself drawn to the story of Mine that Bird. And as I watched the DVR'd coverage of Calvin Borel (the jockey piloting Mine that Bird during the derby) making extremely risky moves in and out of the field and ultimately making a mind bending move up against the rail just after the final turn of the derby (mine that bird's ribs actually grind up against the rail just like those drivers and their cars do in NASCAR when they earn their first "Darlington Stripe"):



my thoughts immediately drew the parallel to the crazed antics of Djamolodin Abdoujaporov:



I don't know what it is, but whether it's horse or bike racing (and all of their drug troubles), NASCAR, or belt sanders...



...if you can race it, I'm probably going to eventually watch it. I guess what keeps me coming back is hope. Hope, that within the bad apples, there will be a story I can believe in. A story I can latch onto that is believable, pure, and genuine. I think there are some stories like that that exist in the peloton today.

One day, I'll find more of those kinds of stories within the bike racing world, and fewer stories like the one that came out of germany last week.

In my quest, I'll keep the DVR warmed up and my trigger finger ready, 'cuz if you can race it, I'll eventually watch it. :-)

I thought I rode hard during my lunch hour last week...

... and then I dug these up on youtube from the 1987 TdF:





yeah, when you need supplemental oxygen, and can't stand up on our own, well, I reckon that means you laid down a maximal effort.

Something to think about when comparing race efforts to training efforts, and the definition of "maximal" vs "kinda hard".

Those tours, and the CBS weekly coverage in the late 80's, hooked me on the sport...

JF-Bernard and the Ventoux - with Phil's call "how high, how far, how fast" stays with me to this day...

Positive Energy

I've made a pretty conscious effort this year to make a move towards a more positive mental energy state... Yeah, all the numbers/smart guys out there will scoff at this - but hey, that's cool, I can respect that perspective.

Often times, though (I'm human, right?), it becomes difficult to ignore all the "forum" threads that get forwarded to me by friends of the BTR cause.

Recently, I was pointed over to a bunch of questionable threads on a popular triathlon forum. I glanced at them a bit, and quickly recognized the MO of some familiar internet forum-ites. My recommendation to the owner of that popular triathlon site would be to whip out the "BAN" feature of his forum software package - it might be painful at first, but in the long term, it will save him and his readers a lot of mental fun tickets.

I administer a forum on BTR:

http://forum.biketechreview.com

and in the three years or so of running that section of the BTR site, I've only had to ban one individual:

http://forum.biketechreview.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=278&p=2953&hilit=height%2Fforearm#p2953

Lots of talk of "ethics" of science/scientists and whatnot over there on that triathlon site...

So, what's y'alls opinions on the ethics of when a person signs an non-disclosure agreement regarding wind tunnel testing and then goes and blabs about what was covered in that non-disclosure agreement all over the internets???

OK, I cracked on the whole negative thing... Please forgive me, I'm human, after all...

Anyway, on to more positive things...

I did the double at Dana Point this past weekend! That race is really cool - pretty funny to hear Floyd co-announcing the race. I about crapped when I was on the start line for the M35+ race and Floyd's co-announcer made some comment about running afoul of the rules (nothing associated with the currrent state of Floyd's legal affairs...) Floyd didn't skip a beat and kept ringin' the bell about In n out burgers and adult beverages.

35+ race was a mixed bag for me. I was a bit sketched out, this being my first mass start race since being taken out at Barrio Logan in the 3's race. Really nervous prior to the race and the night before. The whole crashing thing sucks, but, there's something about bike racing that brings me back - I think it's the hope that the strongest guy in the field won't win on the day!

;-)

LOL!

Felt good and was never in difficulty in the 35+ race - course was less technical than last year, and didn't seem quite as fast. There was a huge crash in the back half of the field in the last third of the race (I didn't hear it, and didn't even realize what was going on until one lap later when there was chaos with folks standing in the road telling us to stop...). I had to swerve to miss the big pool of blood in the road surrounding the person sprawled out - I hope things looked worse than they actually were, but I'm afraid that that wasn't the case. My thoughts go out to all involved in that incident. Really makes me think hard about the whole deal - lots of folks around me talked about sitting things out after having seen what went down, and I imagine some did. Really bad scene from my perspective.

They actually stopped the race twice - once to get the folks off the course to the inside, and then again to let the ambulance/stretcher exit to the outside of the course.

There was a break up the road at the time of the crash - I was eyeballin the gap with the SRM and had it at 15 -ish seconds for the first stoppage, then had it at <10 seconds at the second stoppage. Problem was, that after the second restart, the officials gave the break a good 20 seconds head start and then only gave the field 4 or 5 laps to finish the race. Needless to say, the break stayed clear.

I overcame some fears and gave it a go in the finale, though, my lack of mixin' it up on the crit scene in the past month left me a bit short in the end. Wound up top 25.

Took an hour break soakin' up the sun, then gave it another go in the 30+ race. I tailgunned that sucker for a good 40 minutes. Damn, that race felt faster than the 35+ deal! Lots of action in this race and it was strung out for the majority. Pretty amazing to see Karl Bordine ride away from that field in the last couple laps - unbelievable. Everyone knew what he was going to do, and then, when he did it, no one could do anything about it.

Again, I nicked a top 25 in this race - just didn't have the top end for the last few laps. These races seemed really fast for me! Never "comfortable" in the 30+ race, that's for sure...

Got a nice shout out from who I think was "Marco" on my "regain feeling in my legs after going as hard as I could in the last 500m" lap. Marco, was that you???

This coming weekend I'll try to get back on the positive track and improve the crit finish skillz at the CBR state crit champs here in Chula Vista.

See you out there - peace,

-kraig

Flanders and Catastrophic Wheel Failure

I was catching up on some of the spring classics the other morning, and mozy-d on over to


http://www.cycling.tv/


and watched the highlights of the tour of flanders. Oh, that's a bike race!

Anyway, during the race, I saw something I hadn't seen before - and that was a Saunier Duval rider (announcer said is was Gomez Marchante, but not sure if it was...) going au bloc with his head down and drilling a curb perpendicularly.

The resulting carnage was painful to watch - though, shockingly, it seems as if the rider made it through the ordeal in one piece.

The same couldn't be said for his wheel, nor his fork:

higher res here.

It looks like the fork legs de-bonded from the crown, eh? (Any better pictures/video on the net than the original cycling.tv stuff?) Lucky that no-one impaled themelves on those fork legs - but it's a good thing that the wheel passed the UCI safety tests, huh?

Say, in this case when the fork legs debond from the crown and the rim collapses, exposing sharp serrated edges, would this mean that the wheel fails the requirements of UCI rule 1.3.018:

1.3.018 :
Wheels of the bicycle may vary in diameter between 70 cm maximum
and 55 cm minimum, including the tyre. For the cyclo-cross bicycle the width
of the tyre shall not exceed 35 mm and it may not incorporate any form of
spike or stud.

For massed start road races and cyclo-cross races only wheel
designs granted prior approval by the UCI may be used. Wheels will have
minimum 12 spokes; spokes can be round, flattened or oval, asfar as no
dimension of their sections exceeds 10 mm. In order to be granted approval
wheels must have passed a rupture test as prescribed by the UCI in a
laboratory approved by the UCI. The test results must show that the rupture
characteristics obtained are compatible with those resulting from an
impact sustained during normal use of the wheel. The following criteria must be
fulfilled:

· On impact, no element of the wheel may become detached and be
expelled outwards.
· The rupture must not present any shattered or broken off elements, or any sharp or serrated surfaces that could harm the user, other riders and/or spectators.
· The rupture characteristics must not cause the hub to become separated from the rim in such a way that the wheel becomes detached from the forks.

Without prejudice to the tests imposed by the laws, regulations or customs, standard (traditional) wheels are exempted from the rupture test referred to above. A traditional wheel is deemed to be a wheel with at least 16 metal spokes; the spokes may be round, flat or oval, provided that no dimension of their cross sections exceeds 2.4 mm; the section of the rim must not exceed 2.5 cm on each side.

What is your take? It becomes hard to interpret what the "wheel" is and what the "fork" is in this case - ya know, the fork being in multiple bits and all. :-)

I always kind of wondered what would be the consequences when a bike racer hit an obstacle that reproduced wheel failure modes created by the UCI safety tests. I speculated what would happen when something like this happened when I wrote the UCI and Me article for bike.com years ago.

Now, it looks like we know for sure what happens. When will we see safety tests for forks - it looks like in the Flanders incident, the fork was the weakest link - but really, would the consequences change in this instance? I reckon not - the bike is going to go flying with all of its sharp and dangerous edges, and the rider is going to hit the deck. Not much one can do when drilling a curb perpendicularly at 45-50 kph.

I've seen wheels get destroyed like what I saw on the cycling.tv footage - folded in rim, discontinous, not ridable. I saw destruction like that during my days at brand-S in the bike biz many moons ago - I reckon we catastrophically destroyed hundreds of wheels on a test fixture we nicknamed the "bonk" fixture... cuz we'd "bonk" rigidly constrained wheels with this massive pendulum.

ahh, those were the days! I get a kick out of breaking things like that. Is that normal? ;-)

Multi-tasking=ADD=Evil

Some think that multi-tasking is a talent to be admired and pursued.

Personally, I think it's evil:

I should really be working/focusing on something more important than this - but damn, the Eagles just might pull this one off!

;-)

Ok, Which one of you Cervelo Worshipper's Wrote this Letter to Abby?

This Blog has some pretty consistently "out there" commentary, and this one is par for the course:

http://www.howtoavoidthebummerlife.com/weblog/archives/2007/08/yep.html

That link is rated pg-13, BTW - though, it might be worse than that since I'm not a member of the MPAA or anything and I don't have kids...

Though, now that I think about it... I have watched the first two episodes of "the power of ten" on TV the last two nights and got a few questions exactly right, so, yeah, I pretty much have my finger on the pulse of popular "uhmerikuhn" opinion... ;-)

YMMV.