Students help sandbag as river keeps rising
FARGO, N.D. - High school and college students were let out of class Monday to help with sandbagging as residents raced to hold off possible flooding on the rising Red River.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Too Good!
Drag racing
The function of sandbagging is to guarantee a win by outperforming the slower opponent at first, and then hitting the brakes near the finish line in time to just barely beat the opponent.[2] However, sandbaggers run the risk of beating their dial-in time, thus disqualifying them from the race. Sandbaggers must be experienced in controlling this technique, and therefore, it should not be attempted by beginners.[2] Sandbagging faces much criticism, as many argue that it is essentially cheating.[2] Television shows such as Pinks and bracket racing rules discourage sandbagging by creating automatic disqualification for breakouts.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Product Review/call for swag- Rapha Cap
I mentioned my "sweet prize" in the last post about the Freddy/Jason/Predator Race that happened last week. Now your going to hear all about it. As the first cycling product if bought/obtained in 2009 it will also be my first product review on this blog.First off I should say that I think of myself as a craftsman. Ive worked for Parlee (as a framebuilder) and for Seven (as a painter and finisher). Ive also built rowing shells, Kayaks and spars that in their realm are quite high end. In my current job I deal with a lot of rowing equipment that is handmade and a lot that is "manufactured", and have a good eye for thoughtful design and quality construction. I dont mind paying for quality, things like Oakley glasses and Iphones are expensive because they work better, and im fine with that.
Second, since this hat was a prize I cant say for certain that it is first quality. It is entirely possible that this is a second or a reject, and given my opinion of it i hope this is the case.
So I really wanted to like this hat. I really want Rapha clothing, which is about as high end as you can get, to be worth it. I am still looking for a pair of boots that will last me forever and hold out some hope that there is cycling apparel that will as well. After wearing it for a week and looking it over a bit in good light. I have to say i feel let down.
The design is great and the materials certainly feel high-end, but the construction just doesn't seem to be up where it ought to be if this hat is sold for $40 US.
Cycling hats are a pretty simple design and there is not many places you can make a mistake. The most obvious one on this hat though is pretty obvious. The brim isnt centered on the hat. When your only major design element is a black stripe on a white hat, you pretty much have to get this right or things look a little "off". Mine is not right, its not off by much, but its of by enought that I notice it and that means its wrong.
Inside the hat there are some stiches that are loose, loose enough that the top thread pulls through and stands out. I am guessing that with time i will start seeing the stripe lifting where the thread is loose.
I should say that functionally it is a great hat, it sits on my head and I enjoy wearing a little bit of fancy when i go for an evening ride. It has also stayed remarkably clean for a white hat that my hands have touched while i am at work.
If it saves my life or catches fire, there will be an update. As it stands I feel a little bit let down, like i just figured out Santa wasnt real. If Rapha cant make a fancy hat that impresses, who can? And if Rapha misses on hats, how nice are the $750 tweed softshells really? They take pretty pictures of some really impressive rides, and they know design. But at the end of the day, the stuff also has to work as a hat. If in fact this hat was donated as a prize because it was a second, Ill retract my sadness, and happily review any first quality product Rapha wants to send me.
Loose stiches inside the hat.
Classy branding, just enough to know who made it.
A view askew of the slanty brim.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Alleycat report. Finished in the money!
Ive already detailed the many unfair-itudes I tried to put it place to help me dominate.
Once the race got going it was the usual chaos. Checkpoint workers were late, and we got sent on a return trip to the shop from the first checkpoint after we got manifests. Of course that guy wasnt around either. I used my smarts to get in and out of that mess pretty quick, and im convinced that was the key move of the race for me.
Matt A. also on the CB team and Matt Bud, of embrocation got back to the return about the same time as I did, and we grouped up like a bunch of pack filler on a breakaway. I knew how to get to 1.5 of the checkpoints and Matt A was pretty solid on the other 1.5 so we got to haulin. Like any proper sandbagger I did a minimum of work at the front. Of the 3 of us, Matt Bud was the only one with Gears, so he did the lions share of the work. Matt A was fixed and lost something whenever we hit anykind of elevation. I was pretty pleased with all my brakes and coasting, especially on the long run down Washington in brookline and market street into the watertown stop.
At the last checkpoint I did the hail marry of bike racing, Once I knew where i was going and that I wasnt screwing the Matt's too bad on directions. I did my best to take off, figuring I didnt have much of a shot in a sprint, a long solo run back into central sq seemed my only shot at winning my breakaway. I was pretty sure we were close to the front of the race, if not the leaders. Well, Matt Bud caught me at the Cambridge line. When I could I tried a couple more times to get clear of him. But if bike racing is an armsrace, Matt won with a pretty nice roadbike (self built! check out his stuff here). Each time i went out he caught and came around. I almost nipped him when he dropped a ulock a couple blocks from the shop, but like a pro, he kept his eye on the prize and left it.
When we hit the shop Bud had a good gap, but I was right behind. I gather that we were a few minutes behind the winners, but 3rd for Matt and 4th for me was good enough to put me in the money (or in this case the Rapha swag)!
I won this! The finest cycling hat with a slanty brim money can buy!
Proof that even when you dont win Sandbagging pays off!
Once the race got going it was the usual chaos. Checkpoint workers were late, and we got sent on a return trip to the shop from the first checkpoint after we got manifests. Of course that guy wasnt around either. I used my smarts to get in and out of that mess pretty quick, and im convinced that was the key move of the race for me.
Matt A. also on the CB team and Matt Bud, of embrocation got back to the return about the same time as I did, and we grouped up like a bunch of pack filler on a breakaway. I knew how to get to 1.5 of the checkpoints and Matt A was pretty solid on the other 1.5 so we got to haulin. Like any proper sandbagger I did a minimum of work at the front. Of the 3 of us, Matt Bud was the only one with Gears, so he did the lions share of the work. Matt A was fixed and lost something whenever we hit anykind of elevation. I was pretty pleased with all my brakes and coasting, especially on the long run down Washington in brookline and market street into the watertown stop.
At the last checkpoint I did the hail marry of bike racing, Once I knew where i was going and that I wasnt screwing the Matt's too bad on directions. I did my best to take off, figuring I didnt have much of a shot in a sprint, a long solo run back into central sq seemed my only shot at winning my breakaway. I was pretty sure we were close to the front of the race, if not the leaders. Well, Matt Bud caught me at the Cambridge line. When I could I tried a couple more times to get clear of him. But if bike racing is an armsrace, Matt won with a pretty nice roadbike (self built! check out his stuff here). Each time i went out he caught and came around. I almost nipped him when he dropped a ulock a couple blocks from the shop, but like a pro, he kept his eye on the prize and left it.
When we hit the shop Bud had a good gap, but I was right behind. I gather that we were a few minutes behind the winners, but 3rd for Matt and 4th for me was good enough to put me in the money (or in this case the Rapha swag)!
I won this! The finest cycling hat with a slanty brim money can buy!
Proof that even when you dont win Sandbagging pays off!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Operation Sandbag: mission 1
Last night I emerged from my warrior lifestyle of trainer riding, component upgrading and dog-frisbee throwing to test my progress towards the ultimate goal of Cat 4 dominence.
Cambridge Bikes, along with other sponsors, put on the first big alleycat of the year (well... the first big one i went to, sorry Jacob). Freddy vs. Jason was to be my first test and an ultimate indicator of whether I have a shot at using real training and high end equipment to defeat people who take racing less seriously than I do. This would be the first unlevel playing field i would attempt to compete in in 2009.
I would ensure that the odds were stacked in my favor in 4 key areas, here we go.
Training
Ive been following the Pete Smith plan for cycling success since January, without doing the math I can confidently say ive got more time in the saddle this off season than i had the entire cross season. Whats the competition at FreddyVJason been doing? Buying and selling anodized components on the Forums no doubt, and occasionally riding on warm sunday afternoons.
Equpiment
While most racers would be riding Brakeless fixed gears, I would be competing with EXTRA brakes. One thing ive learned from watching motorcycle racing is that better brakes make you faster, and we all know 2 brakes are better than none. I also took a gamble and decided/didnt have any other parts, to use a relatively light single speed gearing, 34x14 (65 gear inches for the track nerds). So i could keep speed up going up hill, coast and rest going downhill and had some getup and go away from lights. All in all I thinking I had gear much better suited than my competitors for this race. I toyed with riding a roadbike, but thought that would blow my lowprofile, since my roadbike is a custom carbon PARLEE. I think little touches are important as well, clipless pedals over fancy double strap cages, bib shorts under appropriate working class dickies and hot pads in my shoes. I might even go so far as you use sports nutrition before and during this relatively unimportant race.
Research
Knowing that alleycats are typically pretty simplistic in their themes. I spent a good chunk of my lunch break trying to googlemaps all the Elm streets in town, and also bone up on applicible movie trivia (sadly ive never seen either the first friday the 13th of the first nightmare on elm street). I was confident that my knowledge of the actual address of the titular nightmare would come in handy.
Cheating
Once you've done a few alleycats you realize how much the "rules" announced at the start are really just guidelines. People are late to their checkpoints, one way signs are inconvenient, and if you are smart you can cut in line to get a manifest signed. I wont go into details, but aside from saying i will go to all the addresses on the manifest, im making no promises.
I know the public is clamoring for updates to this blog, so I will post this pre-game show now (clearly its being posted post-game though) and load up some pictures and a full report soon.
Good to see everyone playing bikes last night though!
Cambridge Bikes, along with other sponsors, put on the first big alleycat of the year (well... the first big one i went to, sorry Jacob). Freddy vs. Jason was to be my first test and an ultimate indicator of whether I have a shot at using real training and high end equipment to defeat people who take racing less seriously than I do. This would be the first unlevel playing field i would attempt to compete in in 2009.
I would ensure that the odds were stacked in my favor in 4 key areas, here we go.
Training
Ive been following the Pete Smith plan for cycling success since January, without doing the math I can confidently say ive got more time in the saddle this off season than i had the entire cross season. Whats the competition at FreddyVJason been doing? Buying and selling anodized components on the Forums no doubt, and occasionally riding on warm sunday afternoons.
Equpiment
While most racers would be riding Brakeless fixed gears, I would be competing with EXTRA brakes. One thing ive learned from watching motorcycle racing is that better brakes make you faster, and we all know 2 brakes are better than none. I also took a gamble and decided/didnt have any other parts, to use a relatively light single speed gearing, 34x14 (65 gear inches for the track nerds). So i could keep speed up going up hill, coast and rest going downhill and had some getup and go away from lights. All in all I thinking I had gear much better suited than my competitors for this race. I toyed with riding a roadbike, but thought that would blow my lowprofile, since my roadbike is a custom carbon PARLEE. I think little touches are important as well, clipless pedals over fancy double strap cages, bib shorts under appropriate working class dickies and hot pads in my shoes. I might even go so far as you use sports nutrition before and during this relatively unimportant race.
Research
Knowing that alleycats are typically pretty simplistic in their themes. I spent a good chunk of my lunch break trying to googlemaps all the Elm streets in town, and also bone up on applicible movie trivia (sadly ive never seen either the first friday the 13th of the first nightmare on elm street). I was confident that my knowledge of the actual address of the titular nightmare would come in handy.
Cheating
Once you've done a few alleycats you realize how much the "rules" announced at the start are really just guidelines. People are late to their checkpoints, one way signs are inconvenient, and if you are smart you can cut in line to get a manifest signed. I wont go into details, but aside from saying i will go to all the addresses on the manifest, im making no promises.
I know the public is clamoring for updates to this blog, so I will post this pre-game show now (clearly its being posted post-game though) and load up some pictures and a full report soon.
Good to see everyone playing bikes last night though!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
lessons from sun tzu
The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
- Sun Tzu
Recently Gary was asking about what road races to register for now. RMM suggested that it was most important to register early, thus to intimidate your enemies/crossresults nemesis. That by "calling your shots" if you will, you stand to win.
I disagree, and I can site my sources! The true path of the sandbagger is not to win through intimidation, at least not until you become known as a sandbagger. The key is to win by choosing your battles.
ah so!
At the heart of it, sandbagging is only racing when you know everyone faster than you is racing at 1pm. Of course the most important part of this is to never ever upgrade, but still train like a cat 3. But more subtle is the art of the pre-reg. One must always know thy enemy and the crucial advantage of bike-reg is the confirmed rider list.
As an up and coming sandbagger I plan to always wait until the last minute, to better know who i must defeat. Should a stronger opponent register, the better part of sandbagging valor is of course to feign prior comitment and not enter. Since if I wanted to challenge myself by racing faster people, of course I would upgrade.
The only flaw of course is the "ebay sniping connundrum" Should many skilled sandbaggers be active in one area, there may be a flury of last minute registration from many skilled sandbaggers. Thus the key to victory is not how hard one races, but how well timed one's bikereg.com skills become.
- Sun Tzu
Recently Gary was asking about what road races to register for now. RMM suggested that it was most important to register early, thus to intimidate your enemies/crossresults nemesis. That by "calling your shots" if you will, you stand to win.
I disagree, and I can site my sources! The true path of the sandbagger is not to win through intimidation, at least not until you become known as a sandbagger. The key is to win by choosing your battles.
ah so!
At the heart of it, sandbagging is only racing when you know everyone faster than you is racing at 1pm. Of course the most important part of this is to never ever upgrade, but still train like a cat 3. But more subtle is the art of the pre-reg. One must always know thy enemy and the crucial advantage of bike-reg is the confirmed rider list.
As an up and coming sandbagger I plan to always wait until the last minute, to better know who i must defeat. Should a stronger opponent register, the better part of sandbagging valor is of course to feign prior comitment and not enter. Since if I wanted to challenge myself by racing faster people, of course I would upgrade.
The only flaw of course is the "ebay sniping connundrum" Should many skilled sandbaggers be active in one area, there may be a flury of last minute registration from many skilled sandbaggers. Thus the key to victory is not how hard one races, but how well timed one's bikereg.com skills become.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
cross training for cross
As any good sandbagger will tell you, it takes commitment to win races. Commitment to stubbornly avoid facing people who are faster than and commitment to train enough to dominate lower catagories once the season starts. In that spirit, I did not take a long weekend out of town to relax, I took a trip to vermont in order to "cross train"!
It is incredibly important to realize that even thought the afternoon Dorothy and I spent Nordic Skiing at the Trapp Family lodge was fun (yes "those" von trapps, though none of them were singing when we were there) for it to count i have to define it as cross training. And lucky I did or i would have needed to bring a bike up and figure out how to ride for 3 hours in the fresh snow we got that morning.
I have to say it was nice to find something that we can do together without fighting. we have never been able to really bike together. I always want to go faster or longer and she just wants to enjoy it. But nordic skiing seems to be something that since neither of us have any real skill at, we both enjoy without me getting aggravated. And lets face it, its totally my fault that we cant bike together.
Trapp Family lodge is one of the bougie-er places to ski nordic. There is a nice lodge and very fancy hotel with a resturant featuring harpists and such, if you are into that sort of thing. The Nordic lodge has rentals and also "demos" for nicer equipment. Trails are groomed, which may not be in the true spirit of cross country skiing, but made it easy for rookies like us. Best of all its CHEAP! We were able to borrow skis and boots from my family and spent less than 40 dollars on 2 trail passes. When ever I go downhill skiing the last few years ive really felt like its just a waste of money, especially on busy days when you end up waiting on line for lifts half the time. It was refreshing to be at a place where it was un-pretentious, un-crowded and everyone on skiis was friendly and said hello. I imagine downhill skiing must have been similar 20 years ago.
We mounted up on our skis and made a pass of the practice field to get a feel for things, and then set off on "sugar road" which was a nice flat wide trail with groomed in tracks through the woods. We felt pretty confident at the end of the road and kept going on an intermediate trail aiming for "the cabin" where there were rumors of hot cocoa. We pretty quickly realized that nordic trails are judged as much for how much work they are as how technical they can be. There were a number of climbs that left both of us duck-walking uphill. We got a bout an hour and a half out and realized that he cabin was closed and it was getting dark. Then we learned the real challenge of Nordic skiing. All the climbing we had been doing was now a lot of fast descending. Both of us were competent snow-plowers, but pretty quickly we were on hills that overpowered our stopping power. It was clear at several points that short of bailing off the trail, we weren't going to be stopping ourselves, so the goal became to stay on the trail. It was like a snowy, cold version of the mine car ride in temple of doom! But no-one died, or really even fell down that hard. so I guess it was a success.
Im hoping to do some more nordic skiing this winter. Only if its "cross training" though. I cant afford to be wasting my time goofing off!
It is incredibly important to realize that even thought the afternoon Dorothy and I spent Nordic Skiing at the Trapp Family lodge was fun (yes "those" von trapps, though none of them were singing when we were there) for it to count i have to define it as cross training. And lucky I did or i would have needed to bring a bike up and figure out how to ride for 3 hours in the fresh snow we got that morning.
I have to say it was nice to find something that we can do together without fighting. we have never been able to really bike together. I always want to go faster or longer and she just wants to enjoy it. But nordic skiing seems to be something that since neither of us have any real skill at, we both enjoy without me getting aggravated. And lets face it, its totally my fault that we cant bike together.
Trapp Family lodge is one of the bougie-er places to ski nordic. There is a nice lodge and very fancy hotel with a resturant featuring harpists and such, if you are into that sort of thing. The Nordic lodge has rentals and also "demos" for nicer equipment. Trails are groomed, which may not be in the true spirit of cross country skiing, but made it easy for rookies like us. Best of all its CHEAP! We were able to borrow skis and boots from my family and spent less than 40 dollars on 2 trail passes. When ever I go downhill skiing the last few years ive really felt like its just a waste of money, especially on busy days when you end up waiting on line for lifts half the time. It was refreshing to be at a place where it was un-pretentious, un-crowded and everyone on skiis was friendly and said hello. I imagine downhill skiing must have been similar 20 years ago.
We mounted up on our skis and made a pass of the practice field to get a feel for things, and then set off on "sugar road" which was a nice flat wide trail with groomed in tracks through the woods. We felt pretty confident at the end of the road and kept going on an intermediate trail aiming for "the cabin" where there were rumors of hot cocoa. We pretty quickly realized that nordic trails are judged as much for how much work they are as how technical they can be. There were a number of climbs that left both of us duck-walking uphill. We got a bout an hour and a half out and realized that he cabin was closed and it was getting dark. Then we learned the real challenge of Nordic skiing. All the climbing we had been doing was now a lot of fast descending. Both of us were competent snow-plowers, but pretty quickly we were on hills that overpowered our stopping power. It was clear at several points that short of bailing off the trail, we weren't going to be stopping ourselves, so the goal became to stay on the trail. It was like a snowy, cold version of the mine car ride in temple of doom! But no-one died, or really even fell down that hard. so I guess it was a success.
Im hoping to do some more nordic skiing this winter. Only if its "cross training" though. I cant afford to be wasting my time goofing off!
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