Cycling and Bone Density

We've all heard that cyclists are prone to osteoporosis and that cycling weakens bones. Well, to borrow a quote: "I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that." First, although a study in 2000 from the American College of Sports Medicine did find that bicycle riders have bones that are less dense than people who don't exercise at all, bone density tests do not necessarily measure bone strength. Now, a more recent study from Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK compared bone measures of sprint and distance trained cyclists competing at World Master Track Championships along with sedentary controls (30-82 yr) and examined the associations of bone measures with age. The study showed that long distance cyclists have denser bones than sedentary control subjects and that sprint cyclists have denser bones than long distance cyclists (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, March 2009). The abstract of the paper concludes: "This suggests that competition-based cycling and the associated training regime is beneficial in preserving average or above-average bone strength surrogates into old age in men."

So we got that going for us, which is nice...

How the Bank/Wall Street/ AIG Bailout Should Work

Bikestock

One of the coolest places to see the Tour of California was at Dave Biber's Valley Center farm.

He had a great setup for fans to see both live action on the last major climb of the race and live television coverage on a huge TV. Biber says he spent weeks clearing trees and preparing his land for fans. He provided parking, tents, trash, portable toilets and a truck-sized TV.

Biber didn't charge a dime and refused donations. He said he did it all to sell race organizers on coming back.

When It's Cold

This is how you dress when it's really cold out.

I remember one winter when I rode my $275.00 Gary Fisher Gitchee Gumee with a set of $400.00 Mavic wheels, slick tires, full fenders and ClimbMitts. This allowed me to keep warm and dry and nearly keep up with my usual road bike group who all rode on skinny tires and bikes that were at least 10 pounds lighter than mine. I'm not sure how I kept up. I think the coldest we rode was 8 degrees (F). On that day, if you include the cost of my light, I was wearing more $$ than I was riding. Now I wimp out if it's less than 20 degrees (F) out.

Gone!

Remember this?



The NYPD says that he has been fired.

The Funnies

Original here.

iPass Troubles

I have an iPass transponder. It's the newer kind, the one that does not indicate if the toll was collected successfully. Today, I got a "Notice of Violation" that I owe $83.40, which, I assume, is both the missed toll amount and penalties. I naively believe that I can fix this with a call to their toll free number which is on the letter .

So I call.

And get disconnected.

17 times.

I go to their web site which helpfully explains that I have to call them to resolve this. So I fill out a complaint form to pass the time while redialing. I eventually get through and am told how important my phone call is to them.

So while I'm waiting, I reread the letter. The first thing I notice is that nowhere on the letter is the date and location of the (alleged) violation. There is a nice photo of my car and license plate. There is a issue date which is not the violation date since I know I wasn't on the tollway that day. There is a due date, which is fortunately two weeks hence. There is the amount due, the violation number and a helpful reprinting of the section of the Illinois Toll Highway Act that explains that they can assess mandatory fines. There is a paragraph that says that failure to respond to the notice is my way of admitting guilt. The phone number that they want me to call to contest the notice is helpfully printed five times on the letter.

By they way. I'm still on hold. They said my estimated wait time is 10 minutes. It's been 19 so far.

They keep repeating that my call is important to them. They also say that for faster service I should go to their web site (getipass.com) . Faster for them, maybe, because I can't resolve this issue on the web site. I know this because the web site says so.

I'm still on hold.

Their phone message also keeps reminding me what their business hours are. They close in about four hours and 15 minutes. I hope I don't have to stay on hold that long.

27 minutes.

I'm going to make dinner. I'll keep them on hold on the speaker phone and see what happens.

A little research turns up that the Tollway Authority has outsourced toll collection to Unisys. That's working well.

Wiki

Cool. A wiki for cycling.

For Sale

From Best of Craigslist:

Experienced Pilot

Experimenting

I'm using an article in The Bloggers Guide to try to widen my blog a bit. I'll get it right soon.

Flickr Fun with Blago

First, there's this:

Then, the burger of the month:

And this:

Capitalism 104

A short primer on economics. Worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.

Everything That Happens

Funny how one thing leads to another. I was listening to the podcast of All Songs Considered on NPR. It was their episode on listener picks for the best songs of 2008. Number 25 was Strange Overtones from Everything That Happens Will Happen Today by David Byrne and Brian Eno. I never know what will hook me when I listen to something new. Sometimes it's the lyrics, but it's usually something about the music that I like that I can't quite explain. This song fell into that latter category. The next day, I was talking about this song with one of my riding buddies who not only knew the song, but told me that you can hear the entire album at their web site (streaming audio) and download that song free.


I wanted more, so I went to David Bryne's web site to look for tour dates. Of course, I missed him, but I noticed a banner across the top that said: NYC Bike Racks. It turns out that David Byrne, an avid bike rider (I know that), designed a series of bike racks for NY that are installed in various places. Check it out.

Oh, and if you like some humor with your music, go here and listen to number 7, Flight of the Conchords.

Seasons Greetings

Have a Merry Blogmas, a Happy Blognukka and a very healthy Blog Year.

(Cross posted from the other blog I seem to inhabit.)

Due Diligence

I did not lose any money with Bernard Madoff. This is not some sort of boast, and has nothing to do with my superior investing savvy. It has everything to do with my not having enough money for him to bother with me and the fact that I had never heard of him before two weeks ago seems also relevant.

That said, this article provides a nice lesson in doing due diligence with regards to investing. It also seems to provide an answer to this article.

What the Newest Car Ad Looks Like

Tim Jackson has a knack for finding some very funny stuff.

The Day the Earth Stood Stillborn

I saw the first trailer for the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. My first impression was of another stupidly produced remake trading on the fame and good will of a science fiction classic. I am usually not interested in a remake that merely adds modern special effects, usually at the expense of a decently updated script. But, then I heard a Scientific American podcast of an interview with Scott Derrickson, the director of the movie and was encouraged that maybe the trailer was a case of bad marketing. Perhaps the film was good, but it is being marketed using the traditional methods of emphasizing the special effects. I was further encouraged that Michael Shermer gave it a positive review. Of course, Shermer is a science writer, not a movie reviewer, and I don't know if he and I have similar movie taste, so I checked with Roger Ebert. He didn't like it much, and after reading his review, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it much either.

I also watched the extended trailer which added nothing to my expectations. Finally, I visited Rotten Tomatoes and the news there wasn't so good either. My two favorite quotes there:

"There was nothing wrong with the original that warranted a re-do--other than pursuit of legal tender." -Gary Brown, Houston Community Newspapers

"You'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you go into this movie with lowered expectations. "
-Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

Perhaps that's the best advice.

From Cross Racing to Cross Skiing

I got in about six and a half hours of cross country skiing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was in Saugatuck and from Thursday night until Sunday it just about never stopped snowing. We hit the dunes and the Allegan Game Area and conditions couldn't be any better. On Friday afternoon, the Game Area had a foot to a foot and a half of soft powder which made for a great workout in a beautiful forest. The dunes were magnificent. It's snowing here right now and I'll probably get in about an hour of skiing tomorrow morning.

Well, if it's too cold and icy to ride, I'm happy to have good skiing conditions right outside my door.

Northbrook Cyclocross

photo taken by Luke

I got a late start to the "Save Ferris" cx race in Northbrook. That figures. Since it is the closest race to my house and I took for granted that I could sleep in a bit and not pack the night before. Big mistake. I wanted to arrive with at least an hour to register, attach my number, warm up and pre-ride what was rumored to be a challenging course (it was). Instead, I got there only about a half hour before race time and, in the rush to get on the course, attached my number on the wrong side (rookie mistake thinking that all races require the number on the same side). Luckily a patient race official was able to right my mistake with seconds to spare before the start.

The one practice lap I got in told me the story of a very technical, twisty, off-camber festival. No barriers to jump over (rats, I'm getting good at that) and two stair climbs. This is going to be, er, fun.

I registered to race both the 40+ Masters race and the 4a race. It was a damp 37 degrees when I arrived, but at least there wasn't any wind. As usual, the Masters got off to a very fast start and my position near the back didn't help much. As we got through the first section of twisty, off camber turns through the trees, a rider went down ahead of me. I was able to avoid hitting him or the many riders around him and dismount, run past them and remount. Looking good, but not for long. My first fall came on the hairpin turn at the top of the sled hill. It was the first of four or five falls on that initial lap. I attribute this to either my being too aggressive on the turns (which is an improvement over my usual tentativeness) or the lack of the right tires for the conditions (as if I have any others). I also decided to run that turn for the rest of the race.

The first lap cost me time and confidence and I wound up taking 27th out of 31 which is a slight improvement over Hawthorn. Ed got a nice shot of me looking pretty intense:



I now had three hours to kill before the 4a race. I ate a sandwich, drank some coffee and a lot of water and put on some additional clothing for warmth. I also took a few pictures and rode around to pass the time and help keep me warm.

I did get in one more practice lap after the women's race and this was key. I got some great advice from Tom S on how to handle that first hairpin turn on the bike and was able to practice it two or three times.

For the 4a race, I made sure to get a good starting position. This was important as there were 54 riders in this field and that first turn would probably get ugly. Not being in the top 10, I didn't get called up, but I did get in the second row.

I hammered the start as if it were a closing sprint and kept good position for the trees. I handled that hairpin turn on the sled hill perfectly (if a little slowly) and raced a nearly clean race. Unfortunately for me, I lost time every lap on the stairs to faster climbers and the various areas of the course that were muddy sapped my strength and speed. It was also getting windy which didn't help. I was very happy with my race and thought I did better than 42nd place.



Overall, a really great cyclocross race. I prefer the more technical course, because, well, they're more fun. There were also a lot of photographers out and you can see their pictures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.