HPG Velo Early morning ride @6:20 and some important early season reminders
As you know, we’ve been riding at 6:20a M-F and will continue to do so until further notice 🙂
A few reminders for those getting back into group riding and plan to ride the bagel loop (or weekends) with us. For those of us that ride every day, we can’t hammer every ride so please try to go with the flow if you’re only joining once in a while.
Here’s the loop schedule that hasn’t changed since April 1962:
Monday- Powissett loop (easy- for real)
Tuesday- Farm bagel
Wednesday- Backwards bagel (everyone’s fav)
Thursday- regular Glen bagel
Friday- Social (the original social pace since Saturday is usually harder day- this is the goal unless I’m feeling good and change my mind)
Some reminders:
1. We ride early in the morning when most normal people are sleeping. Voices carry so please try to be considerate. I don’t mind being the jerk to remind you on the ride, so there’s that. Please pay special attention to the start of the ride on Dover and Livingston since it’s dense residential. The db level is limited to 50db and no more than 2500hz, so this rules out more than a whisper, high pitched voices, and squeaky shoes, poorly lubed chains, Jim’s brakes, and Matthias’ hips.
2. Just point out holes- you only need to PMC yell when it’s a monster or a rock the size of a small child that I missed and took down Audrey and that I’ll regret from then until eternity. Otherwise we ride this course everyday and know most of the holes. If you hit the sinkhole on Harding downhill to the right of the manhole, you’ll only do that once. A quiet point works for almost everything. Think of this as being a ride with clairvoyants- we just know what to do and what’s going to happen next. Be that rider that just knows.
3. Slowing and stopping- Since we ride the same course every single freaking day, we know where the stop signs and red lights are, and don’t need to yell it out. Unexpected slowdowns or deer crossings sure, go for it, but normal “of course we’re going to slow down instead of barreling onto a cross street,” save it for your other groups. Pay attention and know where we are.
4. We pull and rotate counter-clockwise. This is like clockwise, but the opposite. This is especially important on the Sunday ride when we motor down Rt 27 and Tom Snow, like clock work, yells “PACELINE!. The deal here is that we take short pulls, and pull over to the left just in front of the person who just pulled, unless of course if you’re Italian or live in Cambridge, then you’re allowed to pull off the front fun as long as your want, and accelerating wildly rocking side to side and totally destroy the paceline causing havoc in the back until Eric restores order and forms a new paceline behind you while Steve goes apoplectic.
5. Generally, when it’s your turn to pull, if you want to show you have more testosterone than the last person, please do so gradually.
6. Notwithstanding the foregoing, remember the person that just pulled up the hill, or took a monster pull, is usually toast. Out of pure human dignity and respect, please give them a few pedal strokes before you Froome them.
7. Please make sure your bike is in good working order. Loose stem nuts rattle (and for gods sake just because Landry’s puts them on, you don’t need them), properly stocked saddle bag is helpful so Eric can change your flat if you don’t know how, quiet chain, and quiet brakes. Yes, Jim, this means you. Toe those babies in or bring your bike over and I’ll work on your brakes.
8. Yellow line rule always except for me when its a quiet road and the right side is totally chopped up, like the decent after Nagog hill.
9. This year, let’s try to be extra cautious about spitting and farmers blows around other riders.
10. And last but not least, I have gotten better about letting people stop for more than 45 seconds (after at least 2.5 hrs of riding minimum), but please don’t push it. I could get cranky at any time without notice.
11. There’s always an eleven- It’s great to see and ride with friends again.
WILLIE APPEARS IN MECHANICAL DOPING SCANNER
HPGers –
Did you read the latest Cycling News article on mechanical doping? I was surprised to see Dr. William Monkey’s image on the scanning screen of the device used to detect mechanical doping. (see attached screen shot from article).
I was able to contact Willie, who is now in Korea, to find out why his likeness would appear on a mechanical doping scanner. His explanation is as follows:
“Of course my image appeared – part of my trademark agreement with the UCI. David Lappartient was thoroughly briefed on my ongoing study of mechanical doping when he became UCI president in September. Under UCI direction and sponsorship, I have been recruiting human volunteers for a within-subjects, placebo-controlled, double-blind, cross-over pilot study to determine what advantage mechanical doping gives, if any, compared to WTMB.”
Willie went on to explain that his research is to be published in a new medical quarterly, WTMQ (Willie the Monkey Quarterly). Willie told me in confidence that he is encouraged by the early results, which show WTMB to be far superior to mechanical doping, AND impossible to detect.
John
HPG Velo WILLIE SETS OFF NUCLEAR ALARM
HPGers –
Willie had posted this photo on Instagram (see attached). With the Winter Olympics coming up, Willie is planning to be in Pyeongchang next week as official team uniform supplier to the Russian athletes. Apparently on his way over, he decided to stop in Honolulu, hack into the NORAD control center, and create a panic by sending out a nuclear alarm.
I whatsapp’ed the Doctor, and he explained that this is a fact: Giuseppi is not playing fair by going to Maui to ride his bike for the next five weeks when the rest of us are stuck in New England riding in the bitter cold or worse (think Computrainer). To right this wrong, he did what only a monkey of Willie’s intellect can do – create a diversion that would cause Giuseppi to cancel his plans.
Did it work? Giuseppi, please check in.
John
HPG Velo Cycling safety survey results
HPGers
Since Damon asked about fatalities per million hours for WTM clients, he whatsapped me that on a per client basis, none of his clients are yet 114 years old (1M hours = 114 years). Since dying before then would exclude them from the database and ensuing analysis, none of his clients are considered dead by this British standard.
In addition, Willie cannot emphasize enough that he cannot remember if Serena, Venus or Simone were his clients after he became overheated and dehydrated, which then triggered selective amnesia. Similar to Lance and his backdated cortisone prescription, Willie has a prescription to treat this condition but is planning to say no more about this or any of the other athletes the Russians have outed or will out. Russians are such ingrates given all that Willie did for them in Rio.
John
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 4:56 PM, Damon Bates <damonbates1> wrote:
Interesting…particularly the “living all causes” number…which I feel is slightly understated.
One of the benefits of working for a highly rated life insurance company is that we get to do cutting edge research. Well we’ve done that research and (surprise) we learned that everyone dies.
Now Im not an actuary (I only play one in cyberspace) but I believe all the activities listed should result in a lower probability of death than “living all causes” which should have an expected value of 1.0 …or significantly more per million hours than shown …no?
Might be interesting to know too, how many deaths per million hrs Willie has observed in his WTMB clients??
On Sep 14, 2016, at 1:01 PM, thomas snow <tgsnow> wrote:
http://cyclehelmets.org/1026.html
Interesting article on bicycling safety based on data from UK.
Cycling is safer than Living per this survey…Risk by time (US)
Fatalities per million hours Less safe Sky diving 128.71 General aviation 15.58 On-road motorcycling 8.80 Scuba diving 1.98 Living (all causes of death) 1.53 Swimming 1.07 Snowmobiling 0.88 Passenger cars 0.47 Water skiing 0.28 Bicycling 0.26 Safer Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) 0.15 Hunting 0.08 Cosmic radiation from transcontinental flights 0.035 Home living (active) 0.027 Traveling in a school bus 0.022 Passenger car post-collision fire 0.017 Home living (including sleeping) 0.014 Residential fire 0.003
Audrey the Rock Star
As you may know, Audrey and I rode 6 Gap yesterday with a group of 42 other riders. If you have not ridden it before, it’s about 136mi and 13,000ft of climbing. It’s pretty brutal. It’s my 7th or so time doing it and Audrey’s first. The route was Lincoln gap, App Gap, Roxbury, Rochester (with long lunch and lots of parking lot circles), Brandon gap, and Middlebury- then 15 miles back to the car.
After flatting on Middlebury gap i chased my group. Just to punctuate how well she’s riding, Audrey’s time on the same Middlebury climb of the day was faster than mine. This is a very tough ride and Audrey is even tougher. Dang!
Congrats to Audrey for a super day and for absolutely crushing one of the hardest rides around.
I’ve attached the profile if interested..
damonbates
HPG Bike Blog 