Cycling survivability

In the past, I've gone through various phases of what I carry on the bike and how: I've went through fanny packs, saddle post bags, whatever, and have carried lots of useless crap in the past...

Today, my optimized scheme is good for day-long sufficiency in group and solo rides and consists of a waterproof pouch that fits in a single jersey center pocket.  (If you're going to go the saddle bag route, I suggest the sugoi minibago or bigobago if you can find it for sale)

In there I fit two road tubes (I keep them in their box packaging, helps make it fit) two co2 cartridges along with a mini inflator a super thin multi-tool which includes a chain tool, a couple 10-speed missing links (make sure these match the chain you're using - brand and speeds) and a thin leatherman pliers multi-tool and also a very thin and small spoke wrench for 3 kinds of spokes. In there I also have a couple tire patches, some alcohol pads for cleaning, and a folded $20 bill for emergencies.

Outside the pouch I pack - two snap-in yellow pedro's tire levers (the best) and in a plastic sandwich bag my phone keys and money/cards/id moneyclip. If its a big group ride, I get two more tubes in the side pockets. The most bulk are the tubes and co2s, the tools I've selected the very thinnest possible ones so they fit in nicely, and everything else is paper thin.  (I've tried many portable pumps (currently I have a full sized frame pump) and they are all incredibly tedious to use which is why co2 is my first choice. As far as I'm concerned, co2 will last you a day's ride, but as soon as you get home you definitely want to deflate and reinflate with air, because overnight the co2 will lose pressure. My road tires are at 120psi before every ride (you can check on the side wall what yours are rated are) and the CO2 gets it up to about 100psi.)

On the road I have encountered four basic mechanicals that are catastrophic enough to stop you from continuing to a bike shop (this is why I don't carry replacement cables, for example - if you pop a cable you can still relax the brake, or just not shift on that particular side, but still get to a bike shop hopefully)

1) The flat tire. This is what the tubes, co2, and tire levers are for (and I have a backup frame pump, I got tired of the little ones) I also use the pliers to get embedded wire snippets/metal shavings and whatnot out of the tire that caused the flat in the first place. (I always inflate before a big ride so I don't get pinch flats) (What is this gel inside the inner tube? I've never used any gel for flats, except the sealant for tubeless clincher tires, but I got tired of that shit and went back to good ole inner tubes. Oh yeah - the outer tires I have are kevlar puncture-proof, these kind of tires weigh more but they're worth it, I've had drill bits get embedded in the outer tire but not puncture the inner tube!)

2) The popped spoke. This is what the spoke wrench is for. (I really would like to find a tool that has the multi tool, chain tool, pliers, and spoke wrench all in one and is thin enough...) Basically a popped spoke de-trues your wheel enough that even if you relax the brakes all the way, it will still be rubbing enough to slow you down and possibly pop the tire by friction. (The long term solution is to lose weight and/or get a higher quality wheelset.) What you do is use the spoke wrench to relax (undo half a turn or so) the two spokes that are next to the popped spoke, and that's a poor man's truing solution until you can get to a bike shop and replace the spoke.

3) The broken chain. This is what the missing links and chain tool is for. While I've seen people repair chains without missing links, the missing links are small enough and useful enough that I prefer them instead. (Once a chain breaks on you, you need a new chain, and I suggest researching chain life and getting a new chain well before that.)

4) Everything else (severly bent wheel, cracked frame, etc) this is what the phone and money is for to call for transportation.

Of course this is probably overkill for a 20 miler, but all of this has been a life saver to me when you're out in the middle of nowhere, 4 cycling hours from home.

Youtube and adblock

I make videos and upload them to youtube for two main reasons:

1. To promote something that I like
2. To create entertainment

I have good friends who do this for the same reasons as well, but they also have a third reason which I don't share:

3. To earn money

Two seemingly unrelated things to note right off the bat: first, youtube is not their primary means of earning (or at least I hope it isn't) and second, they spend a lot more time making a lot more videos per week than I do (that's just in the interest of full disclosure.)

What adblock is (to me)

This whole topic came up some months ago when I mentioned that I use adblock so that I don't have to sit through or click through the various advertisements that youtube has.  On the face of it, it is undeniable that my use of adblock has infringed on ad revenue for my friends.  My response was simple: I'm sorry I won't watch ads, but if lost ad revenue causes you to stop making as many awesome videos, I'll gladly pay a subscription fee to your channel instead.

Now, I think ads generate revenue at the dear cost of societal health, and that is something I don't feel like supporting; however, I hope the above stance is not construed to be "I'm sorry, I won't watch ads and I have no problem going into your pocket and stealing dollar bills."  If you think that's what is really going on here, please keep reading:

What adblock is not

Someone I know wrote an article after we discussed adblock.  Let's consider my full position in light of it:

1. I will continue to use adblock (which is only the tip of the iceberg of tools and habits available) to avoid consumerism.
2. If me using adblock is going to prevent my friends from making their awsome videos, I will subscribe in whatever way possible to continue giving them that extra incentive to make these videos; I will participate personally in sharing feedback and positive experiences about their videos; I will cherish them dearly for making great content; but I will not stop using adblock and similar habits and will remain unconvinced by strawman arguments.

When I say strawman arguments I mean starting your article with stuff like: "rip the system, down with the man, kill your parents and hang the bankers..."  I'm not an anarchist, I just try my best to ignore the tasteless aspects of popular culture that we live in, marketing and advertising being a prime example along with stuff like reality tv, etc.  Nor am I an activist with a sign, laying down in front of traffic in demonstration, and I highly doubt most adblock users are any of that either.

Actually, it should be really easy to see that blocking ads while supporting the creator in other ways (even if they are not monetary, but if monetary is what you need, so be it) is at the very least not stifling their abilities.  Especially if you consider the fact that, after the initial investment in tools which is not covered by advertisement, content value is created out of thin air.  When you write a book, you are not spending anything material except ink, what you really are spending is creative talent - you are spending your time.  From antiquity till now, comission and subscription has put the price on time along with advertisement, and you'll just have to call me old fashioned once you recognize how I eschew the latter.

I can most obvioulsy be wrong here if ad revenue is indeed the primary mover for someone's youtube channel; If that's the case I can see it to be yet another tragedy of consumerism.  Either way, by blocking ads I have become no more a thief then when I have come to the movie theatre after the previews and ads have finished playing and the actual movie I paid 40 bux for starts (20 minutes late, I might add) and no more a stifler of creativity than when I do the same thing and every single creative person who worked on that movie - before it even ever got released to the theatre - doesn't notice.

Understand: I'm part of a group (could it really be 60% overall?) of people who have long ago replaced television with $8/mo netflix, radio with $4/mo pandora, who do not read newspapres, who do not watch news shows, who have over the years developed an automatic reflex that closes any sort of popup without thinking, etc., etc., etc.  Adblock is simply yet another tool in this long list of tools and habits.  To be sure, advertisements don't work in generating revenue like they should, and the solution isn't to force them to work through guilt trips, the solution is to understand why they don't work anymore.

And please don't forget the primal urges for creative expression by thinking too hard about lost ad revenue.

Perspective from 2007.

Fed up with T-Mobile - on to Ting (and the Galaxy S3)

I tether/hotspot my phone (which has the "unlimited everything" plan) when my main internet goes out, and while its slow (and becomes super slow when they throttle your "unlimited" internet after a day or so of such usage) it is at least some sort of connectivity rather than none.  Except the other day when I needed the backup internet (because Time Warner Road Runner sucks several bags of d, but that's another story) lo and behold I see I am with no notice completely blocked from using my device as a hotspot, and need to pay $15/mo more (on top of the total $100/mo I'm already paying for my phone) to be able to use my phone.  In short, the only unlimited access I had was to a single webpage - the webpage where T-mobile is asking me to pay yet more money to receive services I already should have, and anyway will never have even if I pay them the extra fee, since they limit the "unlimited" no matter what.

Anyway, as a long-time JRE listener I remembered their Ting promo, and since I already have been thinking of getting the Galaxy S3 one way or another, I went to http://rogan.ting.com and did the deed.

Here is the package I received, and its contents.

I noticed an absence of Ting branding/promo in the package, and instead Sprint branding (Ting uses the Sprint network, after all) and that's actually fine by me.  The phone itself is awesome, of course.  Although I can tell I'm going to miss the slide-out keyboard I've grown accustomed to in the HTC myTouch (and the G2 before that and the G1 before that) I got to admit, the screen and overall user-facing area is bigger and sweeter, while being thinner and, apparently, lighter (yes, with the battery loaded)  It uses the same usb-ish plug (microusb?) to charge/tether, so I quickly got to charging it.

Logging into Ting, the ESN/MEID (phone identification thingy) was autofilled from the device that was shipped to me (its also on the internal packaging if I needed to type it in) so I just clicked through a bunch of times, entered my existing phone number to port, and Chrome auto-filled the rest of the stuff.  Except that I had to log in to t-mobile (yeech, what a bloatware site compared to Ting) to get my account number out of there (and to click through way too many screens to estimate my monthly usage for the Ting plan)

After setting up the plan on Ting's website and following something like 2 steps to port my existing number, the background porting process took about 2 hours to complete.  When it was completed, the email I got from Ting said it might take another 24 hours, but after going through the activation steps (2 in total I think) the phone was immediately and fully functional :D

The plan that matched my usage on T-mobile comes out to $33/mo.  I'm eager to see how happy I am with Ting in a couple months time, what my actual usage and monthly cost comes out to be, and if there are any hiccups what-so-ever.  But so far - I'm glad I switched!

2013 Update:  Ting delivered on its promise.  I've been tethering with no problems, and am paying 1/3 to 1/2 of what I was with T-mobile for the same services (depending on monthly usage)

(2012 update of the original post)

Here is my experience creating a high-definition live streaming set up for the purpose of streaming FPS games. What started as a brainstorm session has turned into an actual nerd DIY project, and I feel like I've accumulated enough knowledge to share. I've split it up into some sections: Rationale, Video, Streaming, Audio, and Lessons Learned.

Rationale

I think high definition streaming (and live streaming in particular) is part of the future of e-sports. There is already a lot of live and VOD content that is serving entertainment to thousands and thousands of nerd ballers every day. And I think this has yet to be exploited fully - thus this article. Just imagine if you could watch cooller (or insert your favorite dozen video game players here) play prac games while talking shit into the microphone - the same way you can watch SC2 pros already.

I also think that soon it will be as easy as installing start_live_streaming.exe and running it in the background. But not yet. Right now there's a lot of stuff to know:

As mentioned, my intent was to stream FPS games, and also that I was inspired by the many live streams of SC2 that I enjoy watching. I noticed the latter was easy to do on one PC - you capture the SC2 windowed screen with xsplit or FMLE or something similar, and off you go. There are some tricks with tweaking settings, but with a powerful enough computer you will be getting your 60 FPS and you should be fine.

With first person shooter games, however, you need a lot more than 60 fps (and even that much is more difficult to achieve) ... This is especially true of arcade gameplay like quake where motion is almost constant, and where the quick game deciding engagements require every bit of performance from your gaming machine - that extra smoothness factor of high fps is important for prozone aim and movement.

In the past I've had limited success by using FRAPS to record live sessions, and then upload those to youtube. (I do live streaming to get more new players into quakeworld.) But despite having a beefy gaming PC, I still had a trade-off scenario: did I want a somewhat playable framerate with a low quality recording, or did I want an unplayable framerate with a high quality recording? Or did I want to generate the video recording in really really high quality by playing back a demo of the game played - but then we are not live at all, and in fact we now have extra work to do recording, encoding, etc., which really slows things down. I wanted a background push-button process.

Of course just using xsplit instead of FRAPS wasn't so much different. First you have the problems with capturing full screen action using software on the same PC - sometimes its possible, sometimes its not, and either way, it is a drain on your resources. You can also capture in windowed mode, but now you're playing through a small low quality window on your desktop. And in all scenarios, you are not getting anywhere near the framerates that you are used to, because your gaming PC has to do video capturing, encoding, and streaming.

So I decided to set up a 2nd PC for capturing. I'm not the first to try this, by far; console and PC gamers have been doing this for years. But I had a real hard time finding a good set of resources - thus, again, this article. For example, they've been broadcasting games in dreamhack using a setup similar to this, but without publishing any of the technical details. Once you get this working, you can just live stream yourself from anywhere, even a LAN - simply bring your capture laptop (along with keyboard and mouse as usual) to the LAN and connect it there and off you go! Of course LANs may prohibit this for whatever reason, but I believe the technical challenge has now been solved and will only become easier.

That said, all this is still "cutting edge" stuff which is continuously being worked on, improved, broken, fixed, and so forth. Some rules of thumb: backup all install files. If something doesn't work, try an earlier driver/firmware. Try to disconnect and reconnect cables in order. Stay patient. Anyway:

Video

The basic idea with a 2 PC setup is you have the game PC and the capture PC, and the intent is to have no performance impact on your gaming PC. This is because the video output is taken directly from the video-out on the back of your PC and so it doesn't matter how the image is generated - wether its your linux desktop, fullscreen game, whatever.

The hardest part here is selecting and configuring the capture device. I go over this part again in lessons learned below, because there is a number of viable alternatives as well as dead-ends in this regard, but to cut to the chase - I selected the blackmagic intensity shuttle. Its fairly pricey (180-200 USD) but it does the job well.

Connection is simple:

Game PC DVI1 ---- DVI to HDMI cable ------ Intensity Shuttle HDMI IN 
Game PC DVI2 ---- DVI cable -------------- LCD monitor/projector

Note: the intensity shuttle also has a HDMI OUT which you can then use to connect your LCD monitor too. I did not need this, because I have a video card with two DVI out (well, four to be precise, brag brag brag) and I set up "Duplicate these displays" in Control Panel -> Display -> Change display settings.

Intensity shuttle is particularly finicky with settings, however. Your first challenge is to acquire the video signal (and not a black screen) so you will need to use a resolution on your game PC which the intensity shuttle supports - for example 1280x720 or 1900x1080. Currently, otherwise popular resolutions such as 1680x1050 will not work, and the device will not be smart about converting it to a compatible resolution; it will just give you a black screen.

Furthermore, blackmagic drivers (while being actively developed) may break compatibility with third party software used to stream the video source (such as xsplit or FMLE, more on these later) one particular example of this issue I had is - I upgraded to latest 8.5 desktop video driver (desktop video is the only driver you need to install to get the intensity shuttle working) and it stopped working; then I downgraded to 8.2.x and functionality was restored with xsplit and FMLE (other users report 8.4 works, but I couldn't find an archive link)

In this regard, the blackmagic site is very useful, as it has archives for drivers.

The most straightforward way to confirm that you have a video signal is by running the bundled media express software - if this gets a video signal in the capture tab, then the device works, and any black screen in other third party software is a desktop video driver problem which you may have to downgrade to get working like I did above.

The other note about capturing video with the intensity shuttle is that it captures at 60 fps. (Again, this has no effect on your in-game FPS, that will be as high as it can be.) It might say 59.9 or something like that, and it may have options for 30fps, but I haven't gotten those to work yet. Your baseline standard should be 1280x720 at 60fps. More on this in the next section:

Streaming

You want to be able to stream it in high def, with all the fancy graphics settings that your game PC can already generate. Again, since we're doing 2 PC setup, you can go hogwild with the highest quality settings, as long as your game PC can handle it. And being the gaming nerd that you are, it can. Nod your head. Streaming (sending to the internets) all that quality is another story. In the beginning you will probably get a crappy looking stream with pixelation, blockiness, wash-out-ness, and so forth. Here's what I've learned:

Streaming at 60 fps is bad. If it works well, it looks super smooth, but to make it work well the end user has to spend a lot of time decoding, and I don't think most viewers (either their PCs or their codecs) are there yet for 60fps 720p. Long story short, you need to be streaming in 30fps or 25fps (I use 25fps) and this is possible with xsplit, it simply takes intensity shuttle's 60fps capture and converts it to whatever fps you want to stream at. On the other hand, FMLE is currently unable to do this. It is locked to stream at the same settings as the video source, and as I mentioned before, I couldn't get intensity shuttle's 30 fps to give me anything other than a black screen. This may require more tinkering to work (or newer drivers) but until that time, FMLE will only stream at 60 fps, and again it will look great when it works, but most of the time it doesnt and:

Streaming at 60 fps is also a big hit on your bandwidth. Some games had a very degraded connection quality (fluctuating ping, as well as packet loss) when I streamed 60fps at any kind of codec bitrate (500 to 2500kbps) using my 5MB up - however when I tried the same settings in xsplit with 30fps, the connectivity would become almost as good as without streaming.

The other part to set up with xsplit is quality and bitrate. I've experimented with quality factor between 5 and 8, bitrate 2000-3000, and as a rule of thumb I would set the buffer at 2x what my bitrate is. This part is where you will have to spend the most time hands-on, tweaking these settings, making recordings, and then comparing them and seeing which one works best. After your live stream is production quality, you will still probably be tweaking these settings to your liking.

In this regard there are a number of useful tutorials. Destiny's. Teamliquid's. This guy seems to be an expert on xsplit, but I didn't actually find any guides by him... Google around, you'll find many more.

Once you have your video, you still need to have good audio as well:

Audio

This part is next simply because I first figured out the video and streaming part and it looked good, but my audio sucked, so then I figured out the audio :) Just streaming the in-game sounds with the intensity shuttle's RCA sound alone gave me problems - the problems seemed to depend on xsplit/FMLE and would manifest as delayed audio - delayed anywhere between 0.5 seconds or a minute.

One option is to bypass the intensity shuttle entirely, and route game PC audio to capture PC line in using a male-male 3.5 audio cord, and then connect your headset to the capture PC while turning "listen to this device" for that line in. But that seemed too hacky for me, and I also wanted to be able to mix in a second source (microphone). There's also a piece of software called VAC that people swear by, but I do not have any experience, as I skipped directly to the prozone (but perhaps least portable) alternative:

Get an (external hardware) audio mixer. I bummed an old (but nice - mackie 1202) audio mixer off a friend, and (being a complete newbie in audio mixers) learned the entire thing from scratch by trial and error. If you actually know how to use one - I guess you can skip this section and just use it to get the audio working :)

Otherwise, take a look at this manual, most mixers look like and work like that and its a good resource.

There's two main things. One - stereo sources work funny with audio mixers. You can plug them into a balanced single-TRS input, but you will most likely get mono. What you really need is a stereo breakout cable. It takes a 3.5 stereo and breaks out the left side to a 1/4 TRS mono, and the right side to another 1/4 TRS mono. It sounds simple, and it is, but there are so many different Y-cables, and adapters, and all this other audio stuff you can get lost in. Again, all you need is a stereo breakout cable. And a stereo 3.5 to 1/4 adapter to connect your headphones to the audio mixer's phono out. Each one shouldn't be more than $5.

Two - microphones. (If you want to talk while you're live streaming, which I think is a big sell for live streams!) With PCs, you just plug in a microphone and it works. With "pro audio" (blah blah blah) there's more variety. You can get a dynamic microphone and just plug it in and it will work - but then you're holding a mic while playing, or wearing two headsets at the same time, or something even sillier, and on top of that you're spending extra money. If you already have a mic on your PC headset, you can do what I did: get a XLR adapter (such as the rode vxlr - don't spend more than $10 here) and just make sure your audio mixer's phantom power is turned on. (Note: 1/4 adapters will usually not work, you need XLR with phantom power)

Finally, the connection goes something like this, and bear in mind there's more than one way to route this stuff with audio mixers:

Game PC Audio ---------- Stereo breakout cable ------------- Line in 5 L/Line in 5 R
Headset mic ------------ 3.5 to XLR adapter ---------------- Line in 1
Headset ---------------- 3.5 to 1/4 stereo ----------------- Phones out
Capture PC Line in/mic - patch cable (male-male 3.5 cable) - Tape Out

The only thing I didn't explain yet is the tape out part. It basically sends to the capture PC the same audio that you hear on your headset. There's many other ways to do this (aux, stereo inserts, etc) but the key idea is the same: mic + in-game sounds goes into magic audio mixer black box, and then the mixed audio goes to your capture pc and also to your headset.

The final part once you have the stereo and the mic sorted is to get your audio levels where they aren't hissing and popping. The easiest way for me was to install audacity on the capture PC and then to record line in, and visually monitor the waveform (as well as listen to it of course) - you will be able to get instant feedback on how much noise you're getting (with the mic muted you should get none, and with the mic on you should get very low, and none if its a high quality mic)

You should also be able to get the loudness as loud as it gets without clipping: open another audacity (or something that shows you the waveform) on the game PC, and playback something on loop (shift+click play?) while recording on the capture PC. You should be able to visually tell if it is clipping, or if you can afford to adjust the volume higher and get real-time visual feedback. (There's many different places on the mixer where to adjust, generally I adjust trim first, and leave everything else baseline.)

Lessons learned

• The technical stuff is definitely maturing:
  
  
• Hardware is being actively developed - it's been at least a year since intensity shuttle was released, and there are other options besides, such as a slew of internal capture cards, as well as similar competing products such as Happauge HD PVR (I haven't tried either of these options) and blackmagic seems to be working on improving the product (although on my one phone call with them, I learned that the representative wasn't even aware that the intensity shuttle was being used for something other than video capturing from a camcorder/DVD...)
  
  
• Software is being actively developed. The two main ones for me are - FMLE, a free and fairly stable platform, although with some critical features missing - and Xsplit, which is a really feature packed and actively developed tool.

There are also apparently dead-end products, most notably epiphan devices such as the promising DVI2USB, until you learn that frame-rate can be a serious problem ... although I haven't even had a chance to test this out, due to the prohibitive price tag. (To be sure, epiphan products do have their purpose, and they are probably very well made and are a very good company, but they did not fit my requirements for a consumer device.)

To set this up, you will need to consider the investment of time and money. You will get from it as much as you put in.

As far as time goes, I suggest allocating a couple (1-3) hours a week, depending on how technically savvy you are, at playing around with these hardware and software settings, for a total of 2-3 weeks. As a fairly hardcore nerd myself, but with zero experience in this particular field (besides fraps and virtualdub), it took me about an hour a day, every other day, for about a month (would have been a couple days if I had this guide :mrgreen:) to get to a place where I was 100% comfortable with all the settings and with how everything was working, and, of course, with a watchable stream. (A week of that month was spent just doing homework on the subject before I even plugged a single wire into anything.) Don't expect to buy intensity shuttle and have everything working that day. Although ideally that's what would happen, the current state of affairs is such that at best it will take you a couple days, and at worst you'll find out it is impossible since your computer is not supported.

As for money, I am assuming you already have two compatible computers, and so your biggest expense will be the video capturing device such as the intensity shuttle, and the audio mixer (unless you can get the device to play nice with the audio as well.) Cables would be an expense, only because you need so many different cables that they add up. But if you're paying more than $5-$10 for any particular cable - you are doing it wrong. I recommend getting cables on newegg.com or monoprice.com or google shop.

Speaking of the two computers, I'm not sure if this is true of all capture cards/solutions, but intensity shuttle in particular has a fairly strict list of requirements for compatible hardware (this is in no small part due to the USB3 hype fest that's not their fault). As a rule of thumb, check with the capture device's manufacturer if they support the hardware first. (Black magic has a useful list here - their site is useful in general, I suggest you peruse the support section.)

Closing words I hope this is of use to you. If this article helps at least 1 person on the path of live streaming, then I think it has been a friday spent well spent writing it. :)

Doing business with Toga Bikes West End

I usually don't complain about this kind of stuff or do these kind of rants; I'm a big advocate of picking your battles. In this case I have been so thoroughly shat on that I might as well catalogue the events.

Background about me

I am an avid cyclist as well as a big electronics nerd. So it is natural that I have all kinds of expensive toys for my bike. Now, for years, I haven't been able to justify the expense for a power meter (one of the ultimate cycling toys) but very recently I decided to get one. The SRM is still too expensive for me (2-4 grand a pop?), but the powertap is more affordable (although the quarq is interesting also) and a close second best in power meters. Also, the day before, I had popped a spoke on a relatively new wheel (purchased elsewhere) while descending bear mountain in hard rain (no wipeout thankfully) and so this upgrade would actually be part of switching to a different wheelset with more spokes. So long story longer, I decided to get a powertap.

My bike shop of choice (at that time, anyway) was Toga Bikes West End (if you click the link you will see their location as well as a shorter, earlier version of this rant review in the google review section.) They are close by and they come recommended by the cyclists I know. I've been their customer for about four years, I tip the mechanics there whenever they true my wheels or whatever, and have until now been happy with the store. In retrospect, I never charged them with the responsibility of anything more than a tune-up/clean-up. Although I did purchase a wheelset and shoes from them in the past successfully, but anyway this was to be my first experience of having them purchase parts and assembling them.

The sale

On Sunday the 25th (July 2010) I called the store and they said sure we can do that, come on in. Inside the store, the sales dude who recognized me from the phone (I will refer to him as sales dude from now on) called up their powertap expert who happened to be around. I asked them both for advice as to whether I should slap the powertap on my existing wheel which is now popping spokes, or if I should get a new wheel/wheelset. Here they got pretty confused, unable to give me any advice and not even understanding what I wanted to do. I mentioned to them that on another bike I had a differnet wheelset that I was happy with, so maybe I could build a similar wheel around the powertap instead of using my popped spoke wheel. Instead, they thought what I meant is that I wanted to put the power tap on my other bike... So in the end after 10 minutes of confusion trying to get advice from them, I decided fine, lets skip all this and lets just build a new wheel around the powertap.

Now came time to order the powertap. The sales dude told me to come behind the counter with him and we browsed the powertap website and I picked out the model I wanted. (I didn't care too much about spending an extra grand to shave off 50 grams, so I picked the entry level wireless elite+) So we ordered the elite+. I noticed on the website, the price range was $849-$999. In passing, I asked what that was, and why I was charged $999. Sales dude consulted with his powertap expert and they told me this was due to the large spoke count on the hub (which is what I wanted to avoid popped spokes) so I said ok great, trusting their expertise at that point. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? If I only knew... Anyway, I also ordered, on a separate bill, the spokes, rim, and labor to build the wheel around the powertap.

Hub System vs Hub Only

On my way home, I was still a bit puzzled about the price range, so I pulled out my smartphone and went to the very site we had open at the shop. I went through the purchasing process, and noticed that there was a dropdown after you select the model. The dropdown gives you a selection based on whether you want shimano or campy, and how many spokes you want. But I noticed one thing - the price did not depend on the spoke count. The price was different only if the package was called "hub system" or "hub only". All the "hub system" whether it be shimano or campy, and no matter how many spokes, they were all listed at $999.99 (which is what I was charged) Likewise, all the "hub only" were listed at $849.99.

I thought: surely the powertap expert was aware of this? Surely the salesman saw this dropdown when he was ordering? There must be some misunderstanding. So I called the powertap number listed on their website and asked them for clarification as to their product. Indeed, the representative there told me that the hub only means exactly that - hub only, while hub system includes also the computer you mount on your handlebars, the wrench to open up the hub to replace batteries, various manuals, usb cords, drivers on a CD, the usual goodies. The more expensive models above the elite+ even have a HRM strap but the elite+ does not. (Which is fine, I already have my own HRM strap for the 705)

I decided that what the sales dude told me about the price being due to the spoke count was just a mistake, and furthermore I assumed that he actually ordered the hub system as that was the amount I was charged according to my receipt and bank statement. I assumed that when my wheel was due for pickup, I'd also get the extras inside some kind of powertap-brand box that the whole thing ships in, and so I left it at that.

The goods

On thursday the 29th, I called the shop. They said the wheel was ready for me to pick up. I didn't wonder what would have happened if I didn't take the initiative and call them, in retrospect I should have, because this became a recurring motif. Anyway, I picked up the wheel after work, but at the shop I received only the wheel built around the hub and no box of any kind with any other extra materials that might come with a hub system package. I asked the sales dude, and he told me that I had ordered the hub only. So, keeping good spirits and hoping it was just a misunderstanding, we got at the computer together and I walked him through the purchase process (which we did in the store four days ago and which I did on my smart phone also as described above.) I showed him the prices for the hub system and the hub only. It was only after seeing all this that he finally stopped insisting that I had purchased the hub only. Implying that the rest of it must have gotten misplaced somewhere, the sales dude promised to me he will look into it with the mechanics, and track down the rest of the order. He specifically assured me that he would give me a call "first thing" on Monday.

The pinch flat

In the meantime, I decided to give the new wheel a spin that night. The wheel itself was indeed finely built. I cranked out some sprints in Central Park and was very pleased with the wheel, but as I was cooling down about half an hour later, I got a pinch flat. The pinch flat was extremely loud, and at the first glance at the tire I realised why: not only had it blown the inner tube, but it also tore out an inch and a half gash in the outer tire! During my purchase of the powertap, I had given the sales dude my old wheel with the popped spoke so that the mechanics could transfer the casette and the outer tire to the new powertap wheel which they did. The outer tire was the extremely resilient kevlar armadillo which I had bought at Toga Bikes only a couple months before this, and I had been riding it without any problems on the old wheel. (Note: if you aren't familiar with the armadillos, they are puncture-resistant tires that will absorb glass and keep going, I've even had it deflect a nail, embed it in the rubber of the tire, and not flatten. But that's another, happier story...)

So it seemed like in the process of transferring the tire to the newly built wheel, they jammed the tube in with force and inflated it. I bet it was only the high structural integrity of the armadillo tire that kept the whole thing from exploding from the start. I confirmed the poor installation of the inner tube that night at home after the ride, after walking home 40 blocks in cleats (the one time I don't pack my tools and spare...)

When I got home and opened up the tire, the tube was jammed in one spot so badly that it was bent in a Z-shape between the rim and the tire. Even the blow-out did not straighten out this obvious artifact of an incompetent (down-right dangerous) tire assembly. Now, I myself have never worked as a professional bike mechanic, but I've changed plenty of tires (my own and others) and I know one of the most important things is you check for pinches against the bead, and you don't jam the tire in. This failure on their part was egregious. The tire was now useless, and I ended up going to Conrad's the next day and getting a new set of armadillos. (Note: Conrad's found me the right size (23 not 25) and didn't try to sell me 25's like Toga Bikes did, claiming they will look the same. The armadillos from Conrad's look and fit a lot better than the ones Toga Bikes sold me.)

The follow-up

Monday comes and I get no call. I half expected this now, and gave them the full 24 hours of the day, but they didn't call. On Tuesday, I call them and got the sales dude on the phone. He tells me that I had purchased the hub only system. At this point I became not only suspicious, but incredulous. We had gone over this before. I will leave alone the speculations for this kind of behaviour, and will leave concluding remarks below, but my only explanation for this could be either gross incompetence or a malicious attempt to rip me off. Either way, I didn't tell him these thoughts, and instead explained to him again, very patiently, that according to the price listed on the website and my receipt, that it was the hub system and not the hub only. I had verified this with other cyclists and the official powertap salespersons. A couple back and forths, I mentioned this to him: I had called powertap and they told me the same thing, it is the hub system not the hub only. Finally, he changed tacks and explained to me that they did not order from the powertap website, but from a distributor between toga bikes and powertap, and that the distributor sent them the hub only.

This made no sense to me. When I was behind the counter with him during the sale, we were on the official powertap website. And anyways even if he did order from a third party, in the best case scenario, toga bikes had just gotten ripped off $150 by their powertap distributor, whoever that was, and the sales dude didn't even flinch. If you follow the logical train of events, after having it explained to him that he basically got ripped off (if, again, that's what happened) when I picked up the wheel the week before, he then apparently went straight to ordering me the rest of the package (presumably from the same distributor) without any second thought. All of this was sounding really fishy to me, but I went along with it. I didn't want to pick a fight, I just wanted what I had paid for. Sales dude told me he will order it overnight, and that it will arrive thursday the latest, at which point they will call me. He also mentioned that he will be out on thursday himself, but that that shouldn't be a problem in me receiving the rest of my powertap package. Fine. I decided to give him the opportunity to redeem himself somehow, at least in his efforts of calling me back when he said he would.

The overnight delivery

Thursday rolls around, and I get no call. By now this wasn't news, although clearly the extra opportunity for redemption that I had given him had been squandered. In any event, I didn't give them the full day this time, and called them myself instead around 7pm. (Thursday is their late night working day, they close at 8pm.) Sales dude was indeed out, but another person told me there was no package for me. He sounded surprised that I had called them, telling me that they will call me when it arrives. I felt like I had just been told "don't call us, we'll call you." Toga bikes is open 7 days a week between around 11am and 6pm. So: Friday, no call. Saturday, no call. Sunday, no call. Monday, no call. Tuesday, no call. By now I was in no real rush, I just wanted to see how obnoxiously long it would take for them to call me back. My overnight delivery has now turned into a week-long treatment of silence.

The pickup

Having made my point (heh...) I called them on Wednesday. Got through to sales dude, and he told me as if I had not a care in the world that it has been there waiting for me all this time. Again, I felt like I was being treated like a child. "Come pick it up, it's waiting for you here!" So I went to the shop, almost three weeks later now, to collect the rest of my "hub system" package. I came up to the counter and said I came to pick up a package, giving my full name. The guy at the counter (sales dude nowhere in sight just yet) had no clue who I was, and why I was expecting anything at all. I couldn't blame him, this was just the logical continuation of a customer spending $1,000+ at the shop and still being treated like shit.

Sales dude appeared and noticed me and announced that my package had been waiting for me all this time, "it's right here!" He presented me with the powertap computer wrapped in some bubble-wrap.

Wow. I asked him if he understood what it is that I initially paid for, and I also asked him why he was now purchasing this stuff piecemeal. For example, I asked where is the hub wrench? To this he replied "oh, just bring it in, we'll take care of it." I said that's not possible, I have to be able to do this myself. Now I was really frustrated. Finally, as if to do me a favor, he consulted with the other guy behind the counter and they produced a package from under the counter with another powertap computer in it, as well as the wrench, and all the other stuff that I actually paid for all that time ago. It even had the HRM strap which I don't need (I have one of my own) and which I don't believe the elite+ model actually comes with. They swapped the bubble-wrap computer with the package, and handed that to me.

I didn't know whether this was part of the package that originally came in with my order and they were just trying to withhold it from me, or if it was some random powertap package that they just had lying around and that they gave me just to get rid of me. And to be frank, I just wanted to get out of there. I felt like I was the asshole for trying to get what I paid for, and doing all the work necessary to accomplish this that they were supposed to be doing instead. The remains of any kind of trust disappeared. I have the distinct impression that they tried their hardest to rip me off, avoid calling me when they promised they would, and, in fact, couldn't even avoid a pinch flat while changing a tire. When I told them as I was leaving that I just couldn't trust them with any future business, sales dude told me matter-of-factly "thanks for being honest." At best, they just didn't care, and at worst they were disappointed that they had to part with what I had paid for.

So that concludes my story about how Toga Bikes tried to rip me off, (knowingly or unknowingly) and how incredibly incompetent they were at it. I'd like to believe that it was only the sales dude and not Toga Bikes as a whole, but so many people were involved in this that I just can't trust the whole shop anymore. I can be reached at phil.nyc -at- gmail.com

Afterword

It has now been more than a month since the above events, and I haven't even posted this rant :) Since the disaster with Toga Bikes, I have had the pleasure of dealing with Conrad's bike shop. Conrad's does have the advantage of being a much smaller shop, in a slightly less accessible location, thus being able to give more attention to detail. Anyway, John returned my call personally on the date he promised he would, made the estimate that my bike would be ready on friday the latest, and delivered on that promise. What more could I ask? I'm sticking with Conrad's.

:(

So I've caved in, and started a blog.  Most blogs, like most of pop culture out there, serves very well to annoy me.  But, like anyone else, I am also an opinionated insufferable curmudgeon, so I'm going to post some crap here and you're going to read it.  :)

If I figure out how, maybe I'll backpost some of my old write-ups that I have had laying around on various websites.

What makes for a good FPS game

What makes for a good FPS game (backposted from here)

UGAME.net is holding a contest “what makes for a good e-sport title”.  I made an entry for that, and then I read some of the other blogs and I noticed a lot of the other blogs focused instead on the subject of “what makes a good game” as opposed to “what makes a good e-sports title.”  An e-sports title has to sell (much like fake pro wrestling sells) and that’s what I focused on; but I would also like to give my two cents on evaluating the merit of an FPS game on the basis of FPS games (instead of the basis of e-sports)

There are three main aspects to FPS gaming that are important to me, two of which are dictated by the game and one which is dictated by the player.  I’m just going to list them and give some examples:

1)      Tactics.  There is a distinction in military doctrine between tactics and strategy (and operations, for that matter) – tactics are the low-level day to day (minute to minute in FPS) decisions, and strategy is the overall goal, which may change during a session, but usually should not, as tactics are tailored around the strategy.  There is not much strategy to speak of in FPS (it boils down to you deciding somewhere between “I will camp” and “I will rush”), but there are many tactics to choose from (positional feints, item timing, high-ground for domination, low-ground for ninja, rush techniques, exploitation of weapons, etc.) and this is an integral part of FPS gaming.  The development of these tactics and their systematic study makes for a good FPS game.

2)      Aim.  To quote yoda: victory comes from frags, frags come from damage, damage comes from pointing and clicking.  Aim can be further broken down into degrees of freedom (and, therefore, difficulty of skill) which may then be used to judge the relative merit of a game’s aim requirements.  I first saw such an explanation by mahmood of GGL and so I want to credit him; it goes like this:

a.       Railgun.  Due to extreme damage in one shot, and the instant hit of the projectile, there are only two degrees of freedom (the 2D Cartesian plane of your monitor) and therefore this weapon can be argued to be the biggest aim-dependent skill, and games that employ it will therefore be more aim dependent.

b.      Lightning Gun/Machine Gun.  A sort of nerfed RG in auto-fire mode, this adds the third degree of freedom: the temporal dimension.  Because to deal damage comparable to a RG hit, you need to track your opponent over time, this weapon requires more “aim skill”.  The exception may be when it is enhanced by a damage powerup.

c.       Plasma Gun/Nail Guns/Rocket Launcher.  These require even more degrees of freedom to utilize, because not only do we have the X/Y aiming, and the time delay of projectile, but we also have to account for the target’s evasive maneuvers which may add any number of degrees of freedom, depending on how many times it can change direction during the projectiles flight time.  The Rocket Launcher is even cooler because there is also the skill of aiming for the feet, and bouncing your opponent, thereby not allowing him to continue dodging.

d.      Finally, and paradoxically, is the Grenade Launcher.  Traditionally, spam is considered “no skill”, but since it possesses all the qualities of a rocket launcher, and the additional degree of freedom of the grenade fuse, there is therefore even greater skill expressed in wielding this weapon.  Its high rate of fire does, however, negate somewhat the temporal degree of freedom.  To be sure, for the GL to compare to RL, the hits registered must be direct.  Then I think there is less argument as to how skillful this weapon is.  (Think underwater.)  As it is, most grenade hits are splash damage mine-fields, in which case it is no longer the crucial aspect of Aim, but a secondary aspect we might call Booby-Traps.

3)      The third and final aspect that makes for an FPS game is the player mentality.  It has been described by different monikers, such as “LAN mentality”, “nerves of steel”, “marijuana”, or my personal favorite “playing to win”.  There is room for “playing for fun”, but in order to test how good an FPS game is, it must fully support the “play to win” mentality.  To learn more about this, I can only recommend the Playing to Win set of posts by David Sirlin: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

***

To really evaluate something, you have to understand it and that means you have to learn it inside and out.  To learn an FPS game, you have to get better at it, and here the old adage still applies: practice, practice, practice.  If you practice with the above in mind: tactics, aim, state of mind; then you will benefit more, but if you find that the game does not allow you to focus on these three aspects, everything else excluded, then it is probably not a good FPS game.

What makes a good esports title?

What makes a good E-Sports title? (backposted from here)

There are three main things that make for a good e-sports title.I will describe them below, give some current examples, and close with some thoughts on what can be made better about the current best.

1)A successful e-sports title needs financial backing, usually in the forms of tournament sponsors and clan sponsors.Sponsors today are mostly specialized industry leaders which have a vested interest in moving the hardware scene forward by developing new products (video cards, CPUs, etc).Generic sponsors would make for an even more successful platform, as the latter would no longer be under pressure for a new game release (which would require the new hardware specialized sponsors are pushing) and therefore the scene would be more stable as professional players focused their energy on developing one particular skill-set.Another kind of sponsorship can be from spectator fees, but currently these are not as big as in other spectator sports (read: pay per view)

2)A successful e-sports title also needs history.This history is expressed in the form of tournament results, clan wars, publicized rivalries, controversy, and the like.Because there is no uniform coverage (VODs being what they are, and TV broadcast not yet fully here) a robust replay/demo recording playback and distribution system is crucial for the recording of history.This continually feeds the platform scene and keeps it alive by giving new members something to aspire to.

3)A successful e-sports title finally needs game-play longevity.The overall strategic sense should not be trivially solved (as in e.g. tic-tac-toe), new tactics should always be possible and emergent, and this usually means that the platform needs to quickly solidify the code base where it matters.Eye-candy features are always welcome development down the road, but changes in unit physics and interactions are not because they destroy previously learned basics.

***

I would like to present some examples from what I see and from what I play personally (unfortunately I have no console experience so my comments are PC only)

·FPS Duel – Quake series, especially Quake 3 and QuakeWorld.

oThe Quake series, particularly Quake 3 (1999) and Quake 4, have had significant financial input.Quake 4 lacked history (and probably game-play longevity) and therefore Quake 3 has made a come-back in the competitive first person shooter world.

oQuakeWorld (released in 1996, still developed) probably has as much history as any other current FPS title currently played in cash tournaments, simply due to being released first, outmatched only by Quake 3 and it’s monster tournament organizations.But it shares a similar fate as Quake 2, NetQuake, and the Doom titles of early 90’s – e-sports was simply not developed enough for financers to be interested; and after e-sports took off, they looked mostly to the top-dog of the day (Quake 3) and stuck with it.

oPainkiller was an interesting example which had tremendous financial backing, but was unable to build up a history and longevity, and was therefore eventually abandoned.

·FPS Team-play – Counter Strike

oVirtually every fps duel game has a team-play mode, but very few make it to the cash tournaments.Counter Strike is really the only team-play platform that is as old as the early Quakes, and still has an enormous player base.Of course, it has all three factors in spades: sponsorship, history, and longevity (say what you will about those camping CSers, there is a reason people still play it…)

·Real time strategy – Starcraft, Warcraft

oAgain, all of the above factors are true for these games, which have risen above their contemporaries such as C&C, despite continued competition:

oSouth Korean e-sports scene even has a television station broadcasting starcraft matches, and players have a cult following.Online voting was overwhelmed by them picking Boxer, a starcraft legend, over others voting for Quake and CS superstars.Starcraft has been more or less stable as a game, and therefore enjoys a long and rich life.

oThe only real-time strategy game that pulled me personally away from single player and into RTS multiplayer online has been Supreme Commander.It is a relatively new game, so it does not have sponsors or much of a history, but it’s game-play dynamics are like nothing else out there and this alone could prove it a successful e-sports title.It has participated in some high profile tournaments (i32, i33) but only time will tell if it will make it big.

***

Room for improvement:

What could the above titles have to make them and the e-sports scene even more successful?Think traditional sports.While you may see specialized sponsors such as Adidas and Nike advertising during futbol, tennis, or golf, at least half of the commercials will be generic big-name sponsors such as cars, banks, etc., which have no vested interest in changing the game (by selling anti-gravity sneakers to extend the analogy to e-sports) but are simply excited by the sport and sponsor it recognizing the diverse spectatorship thereof.

In order to attract these kinds of generic sponsors and free the platform to live by its own rules, that kind of diverse spectatorship of course is what is needed, and for this I believe a good broadcasting strategy is very important.One example to follow here would be TV broadcasts of Poker in the USA.In the 1980s they were quite boring, and never took off past the local channel; now they are on ESPN in high-definition.What was the crucial change that propelled poker into the mainstream?I will claim it were the little things, like knowledgeable broadcasts, the “hole cam”, and other such small but important innovations in broadcasting, that made this game so appealing to the general public, and eventually sponsors.Otherwise, Poker is not much different from Video Gaming – people sitting at a table trying to read each other minds (albeit with flashier graphics)

Now the question is: who can take the bull by the horns and make e-sports even more successful?It must be a group effort.

 

***

Background:

I have been playing and watching QuakeWorld since 1999, Quake 3 since 2003, attending LANs and doing play-by-play commentary since 2004, writing e-sports news articles and holding tournaments since 2006, and I generally play every big-name game that comes out for the PC.

Yet another diary of a siglet

With respect to Anthony Poole's Diary of a Siglet

Preamble: I am a complete outsider to the NYCC and to the SIG (was not even a member when I did the first SIG ride) and to any kind of road biking, really, so hopefully this can be a good read for someone who is similarly curious but has no clue.

Yet another diary of a siglet

By Phil

Week 1, Saturday 3rd, March 2007

I've loved cycling (and only cycling) as a method of exercise and getting-out for maybe 4 years now.  Up until this spring, I would go out for a half hour, an hour max, and call it a day with 10-15 miles at the most.  Maybe I had two or three multiple hour long sessions to exotic places such as Palisades Park or Coney Island, but nothing you could really call "road biking".  But, I thought I was one hot whippersnapper zipping past those silly guys in spandex, myself on my ATB and jean shorts.  Eventually (2 years into it) I got a road bike; padded shorts followed suit not a day too soon.

Anyway, I have planned to go for the bigger distances since last year, in 2006, summer was it I believe, when I would do 4 laps for the first time around Central Park (with a ton of 18-minute one-lappers in my belt) with a senior NYCC member, whos name I unfortunately do not remember.  Bob, John, how many of you guys are there?  Please forgive my bad memory, all I recall thinking is "I wish I am in his shape when I am his age."

So half a year after, I plunged myself into the A SIG as he suggested.  First I had ambitions of going to the A STS (which he suggested), but decided against it as I had no group skills and I didn't want to be any kind of pain to the rest.  Even at the A 19 SIG, which I wedged myself into on that awesome March morning, I think I might have come a bit unprepared.

I had a road bike and helmet, to be sure.  I also had sandals and a turtleneck (with one of those dri-fit shirts on top of it, thankfully.)  The best part about it was of course the weather.  Sunny, and even *hot* 20 miles out into the boonies at a local diner.  Everyone else expected colder, so at least I wasn't *so* out of place in my padded shorts, versus their padded pants and shoe warmers.

Then the trip back, and I am starting to feel the combination of a lack of winter conditioning (totaling at maybe two 30-minute rides in the past two months for me) and of a lack of any kind of more-than-20-mile conditioning.

And then the climb.  For these cyclists it was 20 degrees of nothing, but here I am, hot whippersnapper in his full regalia (sans jean shorts and balaclava), in The Lowest Gear Possible, cranking one revolution per three -- maybe two seconds.  It was excrutiating.  It was mind numbing.  It was absolute will over ill.  And I did it without getting off the bike, and I realised now there is no turning back, come Bear Molehill or Alpe d'Huez, I'm cycling with the big boys and girls.  That same day I bought my first pair of cleats.

Presently I just hope my thighs are not still sore by next Saturday.  (Arms were first to recover by Monday, then my back by Tuesday)

What I did on the ride:

The orientation at 70th street and Bway had some free gel so I packed three of those (two of those turned out to be in powdered form and I was too lazy to mix it).  I also had a bottle of vitamin water with me and two imitation clif bars that I got because they were fudge flavor (they were good!).  I drank half of the water by the time we reached GWB where I also ate my first fudge bar.  The ride to the halfway point was really quite fine, a couple huge decents, a couple very easy ascending inclines, and there was indeed a dead rabbit as per 2003's diary of a siglet (you have to read it). The Diner was nice, I refilled my now empty bottle (still had half of it full by the end at GWB), drank/ate the gel and ate my second fudge bar, along with a triple decker (which did not match Al's on 34th/7th -- had cold roast beef, no pastrami, and coleslaw on the side instead of in the sandwich).  I learned to call "slowing", "stopping", "hole/roadkill left", and so on, although I thought calling "turn left" and "turn right" was a bit excessive since "how can you miss a big column of bikers turning" -- ?  But now that I think about it, missing a turn is quite a bad thing to happen to a biker in a group, so now I know it is effort well spent.  Anyway, it was the ride back from the diner that hit the message home: this is for real.  That 20% grade climb (well, it looked bloody steep to me, ok?) had two tiers, and after I did the first tier (yes, taking up to 3 seconds to push the lowest gear over -- in sandals) I couldn't believe there was another one.  It was probably not even half a mile (maybe not even 1/4th) but it hurt.  And I'm going to do it again.  Stronger this time, and in cleats :)  After that climb, I was barely holding on at the back, and I guess the group picked up the pace as they caught first sight of the towering supports of the GWB, because I got dropped off the back maybe 5-10 seconds, but I caught up just before the GWB, so it was fine.  No real mechanical failures or flats for anyone in our group, thankfully (I saw maybe a half dozen similar group outfits stopped (we split up into 4 groups so might have even been some of the NYCCers) and repairing, and even a lady in our group had one of her front gears malfunction), I didn't even have a spare tube or any kind of tools (that same day I bought both along with the cleats).  I also got plenty of advice to get cleats on the way to GWB from that climb from all of the folks riding with me...  which I heartily accepted :)  Also after the GWB, as some of us were going to our homes in the downtown direction, I checked my computer with someone going the same speed as me and indeed it was showing the same MPH, so I can confirm that we were doing 20-22 mph on some of those flats back there in the boonies.  So much for A-19, but hey, I asked for it, I got it :)

Week 2, Saturday 10th, March 2007

This week was a lot easier than the first, probably because we had a (record?) of four flats across three riders.  Well, they were spread only around 5-10 miles or so, and were caused by the fact that nobody in the front called out the holes, and some of these holes were pretty huge, with stuff sticking out of them.  I guess that's to even out the no-flat ride last week.  The flats were actually best, in that no one got hurt, because at least one of those falls could have been a lot worse.  The first two flats I stuck around to see how they do the tire replacement, but the third and fourth started to reveal to me just how important calling holes is.  I'll still need to get hands-on on the tire changes to be able to say with confidence that I can do it.

This week, we did pretty much the same route, which is nice because I could gauge my progress.  We did that same hill (walnut street something or other) and I did significantly better.  I think I was still in the lowest gear possible, but this time I was spinning instead of mashing, and got up there quite a bit faster and quite a bit less fatigued, in the middle of the pack instead of being dead last; although my thighs were pumping battery acid all the same.  Hopefully during this week I can get some hill repeats in; Tuesday sounds best.

I also met a cute girl in the halfway diner point, she was with her dad riding with the one of the other SIG groups.  Panty lines under lycra based cycling apparel might be a no-no according to the NYCC rules, but they are still a sexy sight :o

Anyway, I was not dropped and rode in the middle of the pack mostly, but I did have one half of a fall and about seven eights of a fall (ok, ok, so I finally fell!) as I was still getting used to the cleats.  I think that one fall more or less "broke them in," so the cleat business should become more and more second nature by the end of this week.

Week 3, Monday 19th, March 2007

I am still pissed at the weather over this weekend.  Seventy degrees during the weekdays, but as soon as Friday waned, boom, it snowed like no tomorrow.  But there was a tomorrow, and on that tomorrow our 3rd SIG ride was scheduled, and because of the slush and the melting snow freezing causing black ice to form on the icephalt (cough) it had to be cancelled as well as on Sunday.  And of course now it is monday, and temps are up in the 40s (from 20s).  Blah.  I guess that's payback for the two really nice weekends we had the weeks prior.  Anyway, this week I will be riding my butt off (including tonight, even though showers are forecast) to compensate, and there will most likely be two rides next weekend, the SIG and a Sunday recovery ride; we will see how that goes.

I did have a real nice half-hour ride in the week after the second ride.  I was at my best pace of last year (20.3 mph over 30.xx minutes) which is very nice considering it is only my 4th real ride of the year, and I didn't really go all out or have any kind of drafting!  The new cleats must be helping.  I think the best way for me to get used to them is for the next few rides to concentrate on pulling up on the pedals, kind of reversing the psychology as well as physiology where up until now I would only concentrate on pushing down on them.  Hopefully the dormant muscles will be jolted into life with this strategy.

I haven't done any hill repeats yet, but I will have to work on them asap.

Week 4, Monday 26th, March 2007

This weekend was awesome.  Saturday was forecast to have some rain during noon, but it was the complete opposite: sunny and a cloud here or there.  I was feeling great on the bike, we finally started rotating the paceline and I kept staying too long in the front hehe.  Towards the last 10 mile or so leg I popped a tube.  Ed, who was assigned as my mentor (NYCC is trying this one leader per two/three siglets mentorship program first time this year) showed the whole group how to change a flat.  I'm going to have to get one of those huge tire levers that he has...  I also didn't have any air that time, so on Sunday I got a topeac masterblaster.  Now I'll need a second bottle cage for a bottle-sized pack to hold more stuff in it :>

Anyway, back to the ride, after the popped tube I also managed to bust another spoke (thats two in as many weeks? well, three weeks, but only about two real weeks of riding) while crossing the GWB.  The first time I lost the spoke on that back wheel a week or so ago, I went to my local bike shop to get it fixed.  Not to bad mouth them, I've done good business with them for 4 years now, but I decided to get this second spoke fixed at toga bike shop instead and we shall see how long their worksmanship lasts.

On the bridge, my wheel was so out of true that it was still getting stuck even with the brakes totally relaxed.  Ed gave us another lesson: how to retrue a tire to some extent so that it can at least be driven to the shop.  The lesson is: screw out the busted spoke (you need what looks like a 2 mm hex wrench), then tighten the two adjacent spokes (half a rotation each -- two 45 degree cranks) on the side of the missing spoke, and loosen (another half a rotation each) the two adjacent spokes on the opposite side.  It did the trick for me; the wheel was still out of true but rideable.  The shop then needs to be instructed in what you have done, and then they need to loosen all the spokes and retrue the wheel from scratch -- not just retighten the missing spoke -- which is what they should be doing in the first place.  Such a procedure should take them more than 10 minutes.

On Sunday we were given an option to do a recovery ride, seeing as we missed the previous weekend entirely (due to the snowed in conditions), even though that missed weekend does not count as an absence.  Some people on Saturday were apprehensive at Ed's definition of a "recovery" ride, and for the few (eight or so) of us this turned out to be true.  It was more in between a recovery and a normal ride, than a real recovery pace, especially up the hills to which I am not yet accustomed to.  Not that I'm complaining for myself, I actually felt very good, even the strain on the hills dissipated very quickly after the summit.  But at least two of our riders kept getting dropped.  I met another cute girl on that ride, no panty lines on her though ;p

I am feeling a lot stronger than I did on March 3rd, that's for sure (although I am still probably one of the weaker A-siglets), and I even got a little bit sunburned/windburned, as Sunday was also quite sunny.  And it is not even April yet!  I will have to add sunblock to my cycling accessories...

Week 5, Saturday 31st, March 2007

Well I don't have any sunblock yet, but come the end of April I bet I'll really need it.  I did get a pair of gel gloves and they are a lot more comfortable (and also save my hands from getting streaks of rubber from my handlebar tape.)  This weekend I did rides both days -- Saturday and Sunday -- and also found a nice way from the GWB to 96th, skipping broadway/other avenues and their potholes.  Thanks to Ed Fishkin, the way is two or so blocks uptown from GWB, and then left, and at the end there is a secretive little way down across the hudson highway (whatever it is called), and then left again and under the GWB (it looks even more ginormous down there than from the bridge level) and into a nicely paved bike path, with not too many pedestrians (what more could you ask?)

My knees and calves are feeling sore a bit, but within limits, and I am feeling quite good.  I am still getting fairly winded going up Walnut Hill, (which we did on the Sunday ride, which is supposed to be "recovery" pace hehe) but I am getting up there in the front of the pack, instead of dead last as was the case on the first ride.  So I must be improving.  But I did notice that while I am in the lowest gear, I am spinning nowhere near as fast as the guy next to me who is going my speed, but spinning faster (and thus working less) which finally leads me to believe that my gears are a bit high for hill climbing.  I'll have to count the teeth on the casette to measure them...

I also got a nice 10.1 megapixel ultra-compact camera which I have been snapping pictures with and they look real nice.  I will also take this camera to my end-of-May trip to Russia.  Speaking of which, I thought the SIG would finish at the end of May, but this weekend I have learned that the graduation ride will actually be on the 19th of May -- which is the day my plane leaves, and it leaves at 4:xx PM so there is no way I would make it :( oh well, hopefully that will be a good excuse to do the graduation ride next year!

Week 6, Saturday 7th, April 2007

While before I could focus pretty easily during the weekdays, now it seems like every weekday I am thinking only about being on the bike on the weekend and on the nights in the park.  Thankfully I have enough will power to stop myself from running out of the office with my arms flailing and yelling "must!!! get!!! bike!!!", but it is still a feeling worth mention.  I guess in the meantime of these weekdays I've been keeping busy regardless, as my cycling accesories are slowly growing in number, and now include new pairs of: tights, half-gloves, three new shirts, a gore-tex jacket (it just slices through wind and makes a humongous difference) and other miscellaneous stuff.  (I also swapped my black handlebar tape on Sunday for an urban-camo-looking black-and-white zebra tape; definitely increasing the points on my bike's look.)

Well, the past week (after week 5's ride) I busted a spoke on my first training ride in the park on tuesday, and my bike was out of commission on Wednesday (torrents of rain) Thursday and Friday (local bike shop backed way up).  I got the bike back on Friday, with not a trace of soreness in my knees or calves (so it seems they take about 2-3 days to get back to normal) and felt very good and strong on the Saturday right.

The Saturday ride itself was a bit hillier than the rides before, including the final climb before the midpoint stop -- a long (a mile or two?) stretch of incline (not sure about grade, something between 2%-5%) on which I was able to quite nicely pace myself at around 8mph and sprint to the summit.  But let me start at the beginning.  My sub-group had a number of mechanical problems and Maggie (and a lot of others whom I do not know by name) were getting winded; so Maggie would catch up and roll past the mechanicals to gain some ground before getting caught and dropped again.  So during one mechanical (there weren't *that* many, this one was maybe the third one) I decided to link up with her and off we rolled until another A-19 sig sup-group started passing us at which point I told Maggie I would see her at Nyack, and off I went with this new group.

Well, this particular sub-group definitely had its act together; very smooth double rotating paceline breezing through at 20+mph, and I was very proud to be keeping up without too much effort.  Good encouragement from the leader in the back (relaxed elbows and shoulders do not come naturally but are an asset at this kind of formation) and before I even had a chance to pull at the front, we started hitting some of the hills.  (The route was to Nyack, but it took some different non-linear paths that were more hilly -- on purpose.)  I remained in the leading sup-group-sub-pack over the undulations (and there were some big-looking calves spinning the cranks in front of me) and although it was hard I made it over without being too winded, and soon we were stopping to regroup with the rest of the sub-group behind us.  Then it was a straight route on asphalt to Nyack, including the aforementioned big climb.

Nyack was nice, but packed as usual (it is becoming usual to me only now, anyway) with all kinds of cyclists, and our first eating destination was packed to the brim (people were walking out with their goods and eating outside!) so we detoured to the other place (owned by a retired cyclist) and he was more than happy to see us.

Sunday ride was also great, and I felt very good, especially pulling through the wind on the hudson drive from GWB into the city on both Sunday and Saturday, which I suppose is a good indicator (to be strong at the end).  This week I plan to do some training I hope will not be delayed again by any busted spokes; but unlike last week I plan to do only two days of hill repeats, to see how non-sore thighs continue to feel on the Saturdays.

Week 7, Saturday 14th, April 2007

It has been really gray and rainy these past couple of days (and forecasted for a couple of more) but today was awesome, barely a cloud in the sky, but some wind nonetheless.

Since starting the SIG in the beginning of March, I've lost 20 pounds.  Today was a 70 miler at a 16.x pace, very similar route to the one we took last saturday, except with a different group (I can remember almost all their names now)  Jeff, Kim, Matt, Terry, Steve, Betty and Bob, and two more who I can't remember.  Ed was absent because he had to attent a Bar Mitzvah, and there will be no Sunday ride tomorrow anyway because it is scheduled to rain cats and dogs.

Since I got the cleats (but I doubt I would be less sore without them) I've noticed the sides of my knees and calves are more sore than the rest of my legs/body.  Perhaps they are more sensitive muscles?  But I think they are just more sore, because they have become active finally after 4 years of cleatless gear mashing with my thighs only.

Last week the two rides we did were 14.x, so definitely we are improving, and I bet my body is feeling it more as well.  Last tuesday I did a nice half hour sprint at a good almost-20 pace, but since last saturday I have been getting more and more sick (culminating in a grocery bag of snot filled napkins over the span of two days) and I am still a bit sick (coughing, but the runny nose is stopping.)  I took two doses of sudafed over the week and hopefully I will be tip top by next weekend.

Also, today I alone took the hudson bikeway; most others went the riverside route, but I now prefer the bikeway which Ed has revealed as it is not as windy (but still windy at parts) better paved (but not by much) and lacks cars and up-down undulations (well, there are some, but smaller scale)...  So, being alone, I also took some opportunities to snap some scenic shots of the bikeway and its surroundings.  I also did some photo-ops during the couple of mechanicals along our way.  Hopefully I can get these online some day, maybe on nycc.org

Speaking of which, I've been working with Tim McCarthy (A SIG Classic leader, and NYCC webmaster) a little bit in progressing the site forward, so that is also becoming rewarding.  It is a volunteer effort, of course, but it is still nice to develop a site for them (currently using an open source cms.)

Well, there you have it; it will be raining tomorrow and most of the rest of the 5 day forecast...  But I intend to get some training time in over the week anyway.  Cheers :)

Week 8, Monday 23rd, April 2007

Whoo.  Well, this Saturday rocked.  It rained hard all last week except for Thursday and Friday, so on Thursday I rode pretty hard for a half hour, to the point of swelling a tendon on the left side of my left knee, even.  Then Friday morning I got Maggie to train with me for a couple of laps; hopefully she can get there earlier than 7AM, I didn't really dig the traffic.

Saturday was hot.  This time, the destination was on Long Island -- Syosset, I think that's how you spell it (apparently my barber used to work there -- I got a haircut on Sunday and told him about it.)  We were absolutely flying.  Anything from 20 to 22 to 25+ even on the flats, and down some slight hills we were hitting high 30s!  We stopped somewhere around 200s in Queens to pile into the Subway and skip the crazy traffic.  But three of us decided to bike into the city anyway -- Kevin, Ed (a younger, taller and slimmer Ed #2, no offense Ed #1!) and me.  All three of us had similar shade dark blue jerseys on which was kinda weird (mine had developed a huge white salt sweat stain on the back, though, as I had later learned) and we did another 15 miles or so to bring the total mileage up from high 50s to low 70s.  All down Queens Boulevard, dodging traffic and so on.

On Saturday morning I applied some sun screen from a fellow rider's supply on my face -- but I forgot my arms!  They got burnt pretty well.  I've drenched them in aloe vera three times on Sunday and even once this morning, and the pain is numbing down today finally, but I have a hunch at least my upper arms will peel.

My legs also got a bit burned, but more on the suntan side, really.  The rest of me is fine, except the combination of the fairly hard riding and the sunburn has drained my energy on Sunday and I decided to skip the Sunday 'recovery' ride.

I am now shopping around for a new cyclocomputer.  This SIG has definitely taught the value of accessorizing to me, and while having a hill gradient read-out on my computer might be too much, I want it anyway.  Later.

Week 8, Wednesday 25th, April 2007

I thought it would wear off by now, but it is still the case that my thoughts are dominated by the coming Saturday and 5+ hours on the bike.  Let's list the accessories I have had light shed on:
• Cleats
• Short socks
• Full-leg tights
• Half-gloves
• Gloves
• Balaclava
• Long-sleeve shirt
• Arm-warmers
• Portable air supply (co2 > pump)
• Spare tube
• Latex gloves in a ziploc (to at least keep a semblance of sanitization)
• Antibiotic ointment
• Sunscreen
• Aloe vera
• Spoke wrench
• Hex toolset
• Tire levers
• Water (vs sticky sports drinks) in the bottle.

I've been trying to wake up early so I can bike early instead of at night, but it is a lot more difficult than just mashing gears after 7pm.  Did some good hill repeats with Maggie yesterday on harlem hill -- it is repaved (but still bumpy in parts, heh.)  But Maggie cannot get out before 7am, which is really when the park opens to traffic.  The best morning times for this sort of thing is 6:00-6:59 am, and I tried to wake up that early today but just couldn't do it, heh.  Maggie called it off too, but yesterday I was doing 15-16mph up harlem hill which is pretty good (totally winded at the top, though).

Make up Ride, Friday 8th, June 2007

Every week leading up to a SIG ride, I could think of nothing but the coming ride, the ehxiliration, fun, and thrill of riding in the group.  That's probably why I haven't missed a single SIG ride, except the very last graduation ride, and that was because I was led to believe it was earlier than it really was, and had made my vacation plans accordingly.

Well, no matter, there is a makeup ride for the last one that is this sunday, and this week I have also been thinking about nothing else, except this time I am full of dread :) because it is quite mountaenous, and is 100 miles.

Coming back from my vacation, I had missed 2 weekends and 2 weeks of riding.  I went for an 80 mile ride last weekend, the same route as the penultimate SIG ride, with plenty of climbing as well.  Despite an advertised under-A19 pace (it actually came out to almost A19, anyway) I was quite exhausted by the end of it, needing a few pit stops after GWB on the way home, as well as a total of 4 group pit stops during the route.

Well, it won't kill me, that's for sure, so I'm going to do it anyway!


Update:
I did every ride in the A-19 SIG, including the final ride to Bear Mountain which I did on a make-up date; thereafter I attended the graduation ceremony at a pub, meeting most of the cyclists for the first time without their helmets (and tape) :)

Now, the last week of March 2011 is coming up and I'm looking forward to my 4th ride in the A-SIG classic.  I've been riding at least every weekend since that A-19 SIG (Bear Mountain through to Garrison being my favorite ride) mostly solo if only because a suitable group (fast enough/slow enough) is difficult to find; but the A-SIC classic has turned out to be a great fit thus far!

I can grind out any grade on my triple (and I haven't had a triple decker in a real long time...) although I'm nowhere near the fastest up a hill, I can change tires, adjust spokes (thanks Ed!), and am generally self-sufficient to Bear Mountain (or whatever) and back, all thanks to the SIG.  As the years have passed, I have become more keen on using hand signals, the key intent being "alert, not panic-stricken", calling out hazards when they really pose danger.  (Rolling through a tranquil neighborhood at 10AM while yelling "slowing!" just doesn't feel right.)

All told, I've probably spent more than I care to count on cycling accessories (and a whole new bike!) as well as wheelsets, drivetrains, computers, whatever.  Although my on-the-road loadout has been significantly streamlined (yes, I've worn the fanny pack as a marshal, no, it is not comfortable.)

The open source cms mentioned was, indeed, Drupal, and now the site is fully operational on Drupal (without my help until very recently.)  And I now have much more than just a hill gradient readout on my multiple computers, but also GPS and power; a geek has got to have his toys! :)

But, no more sandals for me :)