Weather - Bring It On

I'm a big fan of Jill from Juneau. It's weird that a woman like that is not purely fictional. Recently she has been grumbling, quite reasonably, about the challenges of long bike rides in the worst possible weather. I would write her an email, but like less nonfictional women she's not easy to get in touch with. So I thought I'd share my wisdom on this topic and maybe more people can get some benefit from it.

First of all, it may strike you that I am entirely unqualified to dispense advice about anything more severe than putting on a long-sleeve shirt. Don't let the fact that I live in the acme of fantastic weather, San Diego, California, fool you. I've paid my dues. I have spent several years in Alaska. Much, much worse weather-wise, I have lived in Ohio. My crowning achievement which gives me confidence to give advice to Juneau Jill took place in France.

I had camped on the lower slopes of the HC climb to Chamrousse during the 2001 Tour De France. When I woke up, it was cranking rain, serious full-blast lawn sprinkler stuff. First, to simply camp in this and pack up with all but one component, a tarp, getting wet is a job well done, but the real magic act was yet to come. That morning on my loaded trekking bike, I climbed every meter of that mountain in full driving rain.

At the top was a scary scene. Le Tour attracts many nut cases such as myself and scores of them had also ascended, unfortunately, not as well-prepared as me. They arrived on their light racing bikes in their tropical bird-colored lycra. Getting soaked on the way up didn't seem like a problem to them. I knew better. Le Tour is in July, but at these high Alpine elevations, winter can occur at anytime. On this morning, the temperature of the summit was much colder than the base, just around freezing. These guys got to the top only to find the course closed and their return route blocked. They had to stay at the top in the freezing rain dressed in scant, soaking lycra. I, however, had not even gotten especially wet on the way up. Being close to freezing was actually kind of refreshing for such a climb. Of course I had warm clothes to put on, clothes that were fastidiously kept dry. I stood up there comfortable and happy after having made the climb in the most comfortable way I think it could have been done.

How did I do it? When I was a lad in Ohio, I once asked my wise father, "Say Dad, you grew up on the island where I was born, you know, the one with the wretched weather, and you rode a bicycle. How did you Britons cope?" (Before ruining the entire place with cars.) His answer, "A rain cape." A rain cape? I still remember the first thought I had, "Well that's the gayest thing I've ever heard." Obviously, I was too cool to be caught dead in such a dorky looking garment.

Fast forward many years to early springtime in Bavaria. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well there's a reason people there invented Mercedes: the weather sucks ass. I was bike touring through this area spending day after day in freezing rain. I was really at the limit of my weather resisting abilities. I stopped for a rest day in a town called Regensburg, literally, "Raintown", aptly named. I had planned to buy some latex dish washing gloves and some waterproof spray, which I did. But I also happened to pop into a bike shop and I asked, "What the heck do cyclists do in this kind of weather?" Answer: a rain cape. Hmm. Ok, I'm getting it by now.

Of course if you say "rain cape" in a bike shop in the USA, you'll be asked if you are speaking Klingon, but in this bike shop, they had a large selection. And a large selection of Ortlieb stuff. You see, when riding in European weather, look to the Europeans for guidance. I picked out a magnificent rain cape and pretty much instantly my fortunes changed. The rain cape is good from about -7C to 25C when it's cranking with rain. Below -7C, it's not raining and some fancy Goretex suit is going to work great. Above 25C, just get wet, it'll feel nice. Most importantly the rain cape is great for that range right around freezing. You can wear the right layers and modulate them as necessary, but they shouldn't need to get soaked from within.

The only thing the cape is not good for is very high winds (which are not direct tailwinds). In this case, I claim that a Gortex suit solution is not going to be too hot because of the breeze.

My other tips are wearing OR Crocs Goretex gaitors. These do not overheat you, yet provide tons of protection right where you most need it. When I'm really serious, I wear them over latex overboots sold in industrial supply places (by the way, this is why I use toe clips when I'm planning on lots of rain, to avoid a big hole in the bottom of my shoe). Also fenders are great. Don't get the stupid American-looking ones that are trying to copy the aesthetic of an internal combustion engine driven two-wheeler. Get the proper European kind (I like SKS/ESGE) that fit close to the wheel and provide long coverage.

Riding in the rain can be done and done comfortably. For me in San Diego, riding in the rain is a special treat which I very much enjoy.

In Praise Of Watered Bottles

The gods of the road leave many interesting things for the two-wheeling gutter caste. A long while back, I found a fancy polycarbonate NALGENE bottle, an $8.50 value according to REI. These are spiffy vessels for putting drinking water in. They are favored by the people who are slightly cooler than the cool because to have one of these is to show that you're concerned about the environmental impact of the bottled water habits of typical yuppies. Unfortunately this path to environmental utopia is marred by reports such as this from Stuff White People Like:

Previously, the gold standard was the Nalgene bottle, however recent studies have shown the plastic can leak toxins into the water. Currently, white people on the cutting edge are really into metal bottles of water with a twist cap. It is recommended that you buy one of these as soon as possible.

I've had a lot of experience with water carrying and I've never seen the appeal of these Nalgene bottles. I used to use the normal bike waterbottle for riding, but they are delicate, stinky, plasticy, hard to clean, too small, leaky, vulnerable to UV damage, expensive, and bad at handling both physical and thermal shocks. Perhaps the Nalgene bottles are a big improvement on that, but why mess around with another type of bottle that is expensive?

I buy my water bottles now at Trader Joe's. They're only $.59 and they even put some water in them to get you started. These incredible vessels never cease to amaze me with their indestructibility. I've sent them flying into the road to get batted about by cars several times without losing any water.

I was cleaning the garage and I came across this Nalgene bottle. Given the kind of people who own this kind of bottle, it's probably free from leprosy, but because of its unknown provenance and my complete lack of enthusiasm for it, I started to carry it to the trash.

Then the enthusiasm hit me - destructive testing! I have to say that I didn't plan the test very well, I just chucked the thing into the air as high as I could (which just clears the roof of a second story structure). Then it lands on the concrete with a satisfying smack. The Nalgene bottle was filled about half full (same water I found it with). After two rounds, the top came askance and water leaked out, but I resealed it and it seemed fine. However after four landings, there was a gurgle following the impact crack of landing. Hmmm, not indestructible after all.

That itself was interesting, but then I wondered how that would compare to my Trader Joe's bottle. I then made a mistake by filling it 2/3 full which was the ultimate capacity of the Nalgene bottle. I had forgotten that the Nalgene was only half full. So the Trader Joe's bottle got a more challenging challenge. After three successful launches, I was completely unsurprised. But on the forth, I was quite surprised to see a rent in the bottom of the bottle. Hmm, so they are not indestructible either.

I think that a lot of people think that a polycarbonate bottle is going to be stronger and that is their motivation for the increased liability of it. But my test, strongly indicates to me that this is a not necessarily true. For hiking, biking, climbing, and other weight sensitive endeavors, it's worth noting that the empty 1 liter Nalgene bottle is 150g. The Trader Joe's bottle which has a maximum volume of 1.5 liters weighs 38g.

Notice I didn't say that it was a 1.5 liter bottle. Unlike the Nalgene bottle, you can flatten it when it's not in use. This makes it much less than a 1.5 liter space liability when you're trying to pack it.

Two more things to bear in mind. First having a Nalgene bottle lying around to destroy was a special occasion. Having a Trader Joe's bottle on hand for destruction, despite the fact that it was in active use, is completely mundane. But here's the most incredible part: now that these bottles have big holes in the bottom of them they are worthless, right? Well, the Nalgene one is. However, the State of California will buy back my destroyed Trader Joe's bottle for 17 cents on the dollar.

Maybe If They Hadn't Hyped It I'd Be Kinder

I have mixed feelings when I recall my first bicycle. One might expect that I would have dropped cycling not long after taking it up; that first bicycle had no seat.

This segues to today's topic, the Segway. With such an introduction I hope you see where I'm going here with a review for a product I don't even need to use to know it's dumb.

Every morning a Segway whines down the alley outside my bedroom. When I ride home through the park in the afternoon, I often see a herd of tourists on Segways as it is apparently part of some sightseeing tour. I've seen them other places too with surprising frequency. Surprising because they are just so dumb.

As a nerdy guy, I can definitely appreciate the idea and I could see how it'd be fun to build such a thing and play with it. However, as a mode of transportation, it is extremely restricted. It pretty much is in the same transportation category as the unicycle.

This analysis is pretty easy for me because I know of another type of vehicle that has *all* of the advantages of the Segway plus many more and none of the disadvantages. Of course I refer to the bicycle. I've seen enough videos of people learning to ride the Segways to know that it's not quite perfectly intuitive. With a bicycle, you can at least learn when you're young and unbreakable but I've never seen a Segway for half-sized people. Accepting that both vehicles are reliant on a decent sense of balance and taking riding skill as given, we can move on to other issues.

I would be very nervous about how the Segway handles inevitably treacherous road surfaces. Clearly the thing is going to perform very poorly off road, especially in single track, but I find the worst riding surfaces are on bad pavement. If you jar one wheel on a bike, you'll probably jar the other one, but nothing perturbs your stability.

Then there is the long list of practical issues. Can a Segway carry cargo? Where? A kid? A trailer? You get the idea. Bikes are a pain to transport on buses and worse on airplanes, but it's at least possible. You can mail a bicycle relatively easily. A Segway weighs 48kg, about what my expedition bike weighs when loaded for winter trekking. I've never seen one locked up anywhere. Is that even feasible? It seems like a huge liability to leave it locked up all day somewhere.

Of course the real advantage that the Segway has is that you can arrive at your destination free from the symptoms of physical exertion, you know, like being in shape. With bicycles you have to expend a modest amount of energy while the Segway magically transports you. I should point out here that on a bicycle I have kept up with the Segway's rated top speed of 20kph for about 10 times the thing's 38km range (yes, in one day). That may be slightly extraordinary, but if the thing really only has a top speed of 20kph, I'm confident I can beat it anywhere, anytime on a bicycle without cracking a sweat. The reason that powered propulsion is not an advantage anyway, is that if you want to use your body to provide the motive power for your Segway you can not. On the other hand, if you're a lazy cyclist and want some or all of the motive power provided by your utility company, you can get an electric bike. Or a moped. Or at $5k-$6k, just buy a motorcycle.

Maybe Segway fans have something against bike seats. Certainly the seat interface is one of the main complaints about bicycles. I don't know about you, but standing board stiff while directly facing a persistent wind doesn't sound too comfortable to me. And if it did, I could just do what I do sometimes when I see the Segway tourists in the park. I just stand up on the pedals and lock my knees in an awkward-looking position, but one that is unmistakably that of a Segway pilot.

Future of Sports Coverage

I was watching the Amgen Tour Of California today and I approve.

What's really cool is that today was the toughest climbing stage of the race. On the profile maps there was a horrendous descent of about 30km. When I saw that, I thought, wow, I'd love to climb that. Then I noticed it was Silicon Valley's Mount Hamilton which I already have climbed! Yea me!

Based on my previous experience with this mountain, I was quite keen to see the stage and so I checked out the Adobe "TourTracker" found on the main page. This TourTracker is a Flash monstrosity, but it is undeniably cool. It shows lots of things at once providing a kind of idealized cycling coverage. They show a scalable satellite map of the route with real time updates as to where the main field and any breaks are. They also show a stage profile so you can see where the important components of the race are with respect to the climbs. They also show a box listing who's in any breakaway. There is also the running text commentary feed and even a little chat application to make your own text commentary. As if that wasn't a huge leap forward in bike race watching technology, there is live streaming video!

There was some whinging about the choppiness of the video feed, but for me it was good. I should say that the frame rate was good. The picture quality was excellent allowing me to recognize riders that would have just been a blur on television. Another interesting trick is that they let you choose which camera you wanted to watch. Basically you could watch the camera that the producers thought told the story best or "the other one". They even had a picture in picture option that did actually work.

Another thing I liked is that they have nice little video recaps of the stages which allowed me to get caught up. Reminded me of Il Giro in Tre Minuti (The Tour [of Italy]) in 3 minutes) which was very worth watching even in Italian.

And that brings me to the point that could be improved. The commentators are awful. I won't bore you with why, but it did give me an interesting idea. Why not let me choose the commentators? There was a good tense breakaway of two guys, one of whom was German. I'd loved to have changed the channel to hear the German coverage.

This idea is actually bigger than that though. It doesn't apply to just cycling and it doesn't just apply to professional sports announcers. I have just realized that modern technology is laying the foundation for *anyone* to be a commentator. OLN/Versus used to show those ads with ex Tour racer, Bob Roll, practicing calling races in his underwear so that he might one day be able to call races (which he obviously has done). I claim that at this point, anyone who has ever dreamed of being a sports announcer can simply do it.

Here's how. Just get an internet radio feed. I'm not sure how this would work as a practical matter, but in theory, all the technical pieces are in place. It would not be hard to get the MythTV guys to figure out a way to delay sports broadcasts by a couple of seconds and then sync them with coded signals from internet radio.

I personally don't really want to call races, but I would appreciate an explosion in merit-based sports announcing. Imagine flipping the channels until you found voiceover coverage that suited your personality (or native language). The present state of the art of bike racing coverage is very good. The future looks incredible. I'm not just saying that because I have low standards based on ABC's erstwhile coverage of Le Tour, such that it was. The spectators ABC was courting apparently tuned in only to see crashes. That's nice, let those morons have their own coverage.

Ideas For Navigation Systems

I know roads. I am acutely sensitive to many things about them that normal people are not. Riding my bicycle every day gives me a chance to reflect on the dreadful condition of the streets of my neighborhood. It's not merely inconvenient for me, unless it is not too much of an understatement to say that being dead is inconvenient. There's one place, for example, where a freeway off-ramp merges into a high speed surface street going down a hill. About 18" from the edge of the road, about exactly where a cyclist would be is a parallel crack about 2 inches wide running the entire length. If you get your wheel caught in that in the wrong way at the wrong time - life ends. I play this game every day. I take road surface topology extremely seriously.

On my route I know every crack, bump, dip, pothole, storm grate, man hole cover, uneven pavement, curb, cateye, stripe, puddle, patch of gravel, oilslick, and gutter. I do a fair job of avoiding hazards, but sometimes I get caught. About a month ago I had my front wheel fall into a deep crack in the road and it twisted the bike and dropped me on the ground. Strangely I was actually going up hill at the time and it wasn't a serious fall.

Thinking of my large internal database of road surface defects, I came up with an interesting idea for on board GPS navigation systems. Although bad roads are a life and death issue with cyclists, even driving a car bad roads are a severe annoyance. Why not have the GPS systems help you drive smarter with respect to road surface issues?

Basically the way it would work is that a GPS system would need to be communicating with a central server. My friend, Seth, works for a company that has just such a product designed primarily to report back on traffic conditions. No matter what, this technology can't be too terribly prohibitive these days and soon everyone will have it trivially in their cell phone. Thanks to the accelerometers found in certain modern mass produced items like hard drives (they tell the drive to park the head when it's moved suddenly to prevent disk corruption in portable devices) this kind of technology is cheap and easy.

Basically your car would just drive along and as you hit pot holes and drainage dips, etc., your GPS would report that back to the central server which could be compiling a rather accurate profile. Eventually, you could ask your GPS computer to plan the best route for you that involved the quickest way *or* the smoothest. This concept need not stop with bumps but could also apply to curves allowing you to seek out the least curvy road or the opposite if you're testing your new motorcycle tires.

Another interesting similar idea is that you can rate your drive when you arrive. In other words, did you feel that the drive was decent? The computer could then start compiling profiles of areas that can be inferred to cause dissatisfaction. Then the computer can be instructed to produce the "best" drive. Collaborative filtering could be used so that the curve-favoring people got the same advice as each other, but the opposite advice of the people tending to not enjoy curves.

I'm also working on installing a roof rack on my car. I remember once driving with bikes on the roof of a car and hitting one of those swinging bars at a parking garage. Now I'm pretty paranoid about forgetting about my bikes and driving into something stupid. This is another area that the GPS computers could help with. You could tell it specific points that you know about (which it could share with others) and it could then remind you about the bikes. So for example if your garage is too short for the bikes, when you put them on the car, you can tell the computer that and as you approach it, it will remind you. Easy to do. Slightly harder is hooking that up with a database of all fast food restaurants so the computer can say, "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you go through the drive through."