Immediately I received spam with offers of services I declined during the $30 dollar purchase process.

Apparently, the marginal gain from scattering the net with unsolicited mail is enough to lead businesses into giving a black eye to their own good name.

I have of course filtered my e-mail address and hope a few of the thousands of people reading the ARC website will know better than to spend money on the same program.

Like most such businesses, that one should be gone by the time this is posted.

Today was one of those perfect Google Maps shiny blue street level photo days and not all that cold.

You and Widder did the Gulf Boulevard ride up to Clearwater, back to almost Madeira Beach (on the new bike lane) then back home for a 28 mile loop.

Of course, one would say it was a perfect Google Maps shiny blue day if one totally disregarded the wind which made you both long for the easy NY rides where every uphill has a downhill.

In fact, on the Clearwater Bridge downhill (usually a 30+ descent), Widder was hard pressed to hold 10 mph into the headwind.

For those who wonder what perfect Google Maps shiny blue day means, they look like this. >>>

OVERHEARD IN SNACK ROOM OF AMSTERDAM AIRPORT SECURITY

A bomb?! Well, I'm fucked. I thought he said it was a bhong in his pants, so big deal, I let him pass through. Fuck me.

Unfortunately, just as we were going out the door BLASTER called Mary's cell phone and well… our sweet little easy ride turned rather ugly after that.

Basically, he is a tight-ass motherfucker who needs to relax a little.

The DVD's said that anybody who scores under a 14 will probably end up on the surgeon's table if they don't fix their problems, and I was a little worried when I saw Bianchi's asymmetries and instability during the screening.

But review showed he got a 16, and that pushup was incredible!

I'm giving myself a 0 for how poorly I administered the screening. >>>

Getting ready for a long ride out in the warm sun as a start on next summer's Kain Assaults.

Widder was so blown away and inspired, she pulled out the old pie-card hoping to shut him down by spring. >>>

Right at the beginning of their workout he was throwing his arms up like he was coming over the finish of the Tour?

He did it as soon the ARC staff started asking him about Humberto's Computrainer wires and setup.

It looked like this. >>>

HUMP REPORT

Earlier today, Dangerous Dan Sullivan took the Hump in his most favorite manner—by not even showing up for the ride.

But it wasn't all sweetness and light, because Dan did have to fulfill the primary requirement for a Hump win which is to harass the shit out of Humberto.

ARC Staff arrived for a factory tour of this morning's Computrainer School just in time to observe Dangerous fucking with Humberto so bad he could barely turn his pedals over.

Of course, Dan disavowed any connection to Humberto's woes, and we did a thorough check of all wires and setups and were darned if we could see how he was doing it, but there is absolutely no way Humberto could have been having so much trouble in such close proximity to Dangerous without there being some sort of strong nexus.

Everybody else at the event was also adamant they were doing nothing to Humberto as well, and the whole affair would have appeared innocent to a casual observer, but we at ARC know better.

Therefore, Dangerous gets the win, and that is that.

Everybody wants to be a star.

He and BlwToutRS were crouched on a grassy knoll overlooking a vast herd of the locals.

Kauflp: They sure are a weird species.

BlwToutRS: Tell me about it. Almost as weird as the multipeds near the HausFaudder Nebula. At least the HausFaudderens have three penis's. The males of this pitiful species barely have one. We've almost completed our takeover.

Kauflp: What are those things in all their ears?

BlwToutRS: Oh, that's our newest socio-implants.

Kauflp: What's it do?

BlwToutRS: Tells them what to think.

Kauflp: How's it do that?!

BlwToutRS: Pretends to be their friend.

Kauflp: What?! Don't they realize their friends are nowhere around?

BlwToutRS: They don't seem to notice.

Kauflp: How'd you get them to accept ear implants in the first place.

BlwToutRS: It was not nearly as hard as we expected. At first we were going to put computer chips in their heads, but word got out, and one of the gateway associates from the Symbiopod Galaxy tried to do damage control by telling them it was a government program… Holy Kripesalon, nobody could have guessed their reaction. Apparently they all hate their government, and especially the idea of computer chip cranial implants.

Kauflp: So how'd you finally get them to do it?

BlwToutRS: You won't believe this. It was easier than filling the Neptgurian Water Balloon People with Reptilian Rum. We just told them it was cool, and they all put them in themselves.

Kauflp: Have you tried the bovine thumbshackle cud boxes?

BlwToutRS: Shit, that was easier. We didn't even have to say it was cool—just a business expense… Like I said, our takeover is near complete.

Kauflp: This universe never ceases to amaze me.

You are going to fuck yourself up so bad, you'll never make the drive to Florida.

Cut the crap and get back to your floor exercises.

In fact, I'm going to have to come over to your house and break your thumbs to keep you from getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

You may remember that after cracking a molar during an extra effort bench press, Mary found a jagged 2 mm piece of dental fill that came out during a flossing and gave her some relief.

Apparently that was not enough, so this afternoon she went to the dentist who (after failing to get a full anaesthesis) yanked the whole tooth out and replaced it with a cow's leg.

For some odd reason Widder's mouth still hurts.

Go figure.

She wanted it like Floyd.

Something has always seemed missing, so today I took extra time to figure it out.

The crappy mp3's are plenty good enough for this exercise, and the ear-buds provide plenty of low-end for hearing the bass, but here's the deal.

Just hearing it in headphones is not the same as having big-ass studio monitors pushing enough air for the kick drum to thump you in the plexis in time with the bass rythmically squishing your entire body in a swaddling of sub-100 Hertz heaven.

…and I don't mean it has to be way too fucking loud like a tricked out advertise my penis as smaller than everybody else's hot-car neither.

Just a slight 70 db oomph (a little quieter than a vacuum cleaner) will do it.

It was about three years ago that I got all excited to get an itty bitty shuffle and crashed my computer trying to get some tunes on it, and I have avoided coming within a hundred miles of iTunes since.

But I have an impending three days solid of running a major full backup, and that prompted me to try again with music files so any new stuff will have a deep backup and not get in the way of my daily backups for the next few years.

It only took about three hours to get my playlist back to where it was three years ago, so I was fueled up to try a $40.00 used E-bay upgrade with twice the memory.

When the unit got here I spent a day figuring out what should go on it and loaded it all onto our big drive.

After I finished I was shocked to find a double copy of one song, and spent another couple hours trying to figure out how I did that to myself.

Turns out, the person who had tested the unit before sending it had used one of the very tunes I consider a staple and left it there.

You'd think that was some sort of a major coincidence, if you didn't know much about music, musicians, and people who otherwise take the sounds of one hands clapping very seriously.

Suffice it to say there are certain performers and productions that are mainstays of any serious listener, and they pop up all the time in people's testing kits.

Thinking about it brought me to another realization about why I always had such an odd orientation to what I consider the bottom line for acceptable guitar performance.

Turns out this piece had always haunted me as being something with a deep memory attached to it.

In case you are interested it's Bodhisattva by Steely Dan.

Anyway, I spent a little time thinking it through, and I finally realized that the reason the cascading guitar solo has always felt so familiar is because in 1972 somebody in Cincinnati took me into a tiny little out of the way bar where there was supposed to be an incredible band playing for just one night.

No need to waste a lot of time on the details, but for the better part of an hour I stood a foot away from this guitarist about whom people kept commenting, "Fucker's incredible ain't he. He's a studio musician from New York."

I could go into a lot of the particulars, but the quick take is that I really didn't know much about guitar at the time, but thought, "That's real nice. I should learn to play like that," and got pretty close to it during a 20 year teaching and performing career.

I guess the point is you never know when you might be standing right next to greatness and not quite see it.

Like you might be in some little main street bistro in Warwick on a Friday night open-mic gathering, and somebody playing incredible banjo, horns, and everything else under the sun, might go out in the back alley during breaks, and instead of smoking dope with all the rest of the musicians jump on a stationary to get in shape to take back his World Record Kain Assault.

One never knows.

Why does Bianchi's graph look so much smoother than Widder's.

In any case, his graph is for a full 40 minutes, while Widder's results have always been shown for an interval (or part of), and that reveals a little rougher detail.

Additionally, it might be that Bianchi's stationary does not have an actual magnet and sensor on the crank arm but is using the Powertap internal calculations.

The day I did Kain when my cadence sensor battery was dead, I got real excited about my smooth cadence until I remembered it wasn't actually measured, just calculated.

I don't have Bianchi's actual files to take a closer look (only the screen shot he sent), but from what I have seen so far (coupled with getting on his stationary once), I would say there is a power smoothing due to the flywheel.

That would also answer a question Bianchi had about the torque not making sense to him.

It appears his stationary: 1) under reports torque, 2) overstates effort required to get to a given watts, 3) over reports speed per watts.

I'll have a better idea once I get the actual files and can go over them more closely.

They say she decided on the course that only required a webcam to make sure she watched the presentation.

No test. Just five dollars for the camera.

Easy and cheap.

So Humberto worked really hard trying to fit in.

Did it ever do him any good?

With unfettered perseverance, uncompromising effort, and a never say die attitude, Humberto worked night and day to get his performance, his diet, and his expectations in just the right place.

Finally, he was living the dream and assumed his rightful place with the fellows of big pink.

Humberto started signing on to any spot that guaranteed he could compete in pink and get his face out there for the team leaders to see. >>>

Apparently his big dream of making it onto that cycling team went out the window with his self esteem.

Humberto held fast to his dream despite the things he had to do for money, so he eventually got back to cycling even if slightly changed. >>>

KEVIN! Send us these numbers with your morning naked body weight. >>>

And no, we don't want a photo of your weigh-in.

Rags to riches indeed.

How'd Humberto come up with all that money so quick.

He had skills. >>>

Looks like Humberto didn't have a pot to piss in.

Eventually all his hard work started to pay off, and he had things, but by then the pink was taking its toll. >>>

He already had a strong interest after one of his temp jobs.

He grabbed hold of his diet and started working it with renewed hope. >>>

He soon left product promotions and moved into direct sales.

Cranky got clipped for running a stop sign today, and she is now thinking better of it. >>>

Unfortunately, once begun, the pinking remained a major element in all his work. >>>

Very soon in a desperate grab for acceptance, Humberto got off the snacks and acceded to the kitting.

What happened when he got to America?

What the fuck have I got to be proud about?

Humberto had to study, take a test, and get sworn in.

He deserves a retrospective montage of his coming to America.

Let's get started with the day he got on the boat. >>>

What do you think happened to him?

So maybe he got shuttled off to rehab, assuming he has a friend in the world.

Or maybe that other channel offered him more money to continue being an insufferable asshole.

However, I am pretty sure the final straw (that caused him to throw in the towel and just give the fuck up) was when he saw this. >>>

HUMP REPORT

Using techniques suggested by SlingShot (gleened from assiduous review of Powertap data), earlier today Widder succeeded with this maximum watt effort on her Computrainer. >>>

Although it was the best out of 5 tries, 4 were over 1100, and one over 1000.

How's about we start off with something like this? >>>

He did that to himself.

We would do it like this. >>>

Another PB Compu-Kaining:

   991 max watts!
   485 watt average!!
   4:36.33 virtual Kaining!!!

Kicked the 200 watt Metal Man's ass.

Fuck. >>>

SORRY

It has come to my attention that I have spent the better part of the last two years misrepresenting watt training for the Widder's 23+ Hump, so at some point I guess I should apologize.

The thing that finally led to this realization was my review of last summer's data which showed my best effort Hump was only 19.03 mph where my 200 watts (196 actually) should have made an easy 20+.

However, I cannot be totally faulted for my error, because every web page on the subject seems to be hell bent on blinding riders with science while the pure simplicity of all this is ignored.

Training with power is not rocket science.

First off, everybody likes to think that the Hump is hard because of the hills, but I have often contended that is not true.

A 20 mph ITT can be done rather easily if hills are handled exactly the opposite of the way most people do them.

Here is a graph of an example hill.

Most people will attack at the bottom (on the left) and coast or work easy after cresting the top.

Actually, you can do the hill a lot faster with a lot more ease by dropping half your effort off the uphill and applying it to the downhill.

Of course that doesn't work quite as well if you are too fucking fat, because in that case you will never be able to make up the difference of the slower uphill by pushing on the downhill due to wind resistance against your bulbous belly.

Actually, it would work out perfectly equal if you could crest the top by taking only one explosive pedal stroke at the bottom then coasting all the way up and over, but it is unlikely your ass would survive the amount of fire we'd have to put under it to get it going.

Like I said, it ain't rocket science: go up the hill easy and maintain your effort over the top and down.

The Hump starts and finishes at the same place, so the downhills cancel out the uphills.

Of course, there's the little matter of wind, but for every puff in your face:

… the Hump will offer an equal puff on your back:

… especially with a SW wind.

Excuse the cartoons, but this ain't rocket science.

I must admit the problem of intersections slowing you down is somewhat problematic, and checking my intersection numbers over the last few days is how I came to know that I have been misrepresenting the whole situation.

Looking at my data for this summer, it was obvious I was slowed by the intersections, not the wind, not the hills, not my strength, not my endurance.

However, when I tried a quick Time Trial on the old Wednseday night course a couple days ago, I still missed 20 @ 200 by 8 tenths mph despite attention to intersections.

Also, it took about 60 seconds to get from 10-20 mph during my test on the flat prior to TT'ing, and that was with 200 where 180 should have done it.

My intuition told me I was very close but needed just a little more effort of some exact amount that I should be able to calculate.

After all, this ain't rocket science, and I already found enough information online to get the Power to Weight Calculator giving watts to speed figures that track along the Firth and Malcom graph.

Unfortunately, when I started googling around looking for an equation to calculate Estimated Time of Arrival (or in this case to Terminal Acceleration), I found that not one of the online watt calculators, nor a single fucking one of the cycling websites on the planet, address this problem.

Yeah, 180 watts is approximately 20+ mph, but how long does it take to get there from a dead start?

If I have to slow down for an intersection, exactly how much do I have to work on the other side to make it up, and for how long?

This ain't fucking rocket science.

There should be a simple answer.

All the shithole cycling websites would rather divert my attention from the essence by trying to sell me stuff like fancy toenail clippers expensive enough to take off that last gram of weight in my pedal stroke and other such things which only succeed in making my ass smart near my wallet.

Plus, all the online calculators add so much de minimus detail, they are only useful in assuaging my ego by making inconsequential minutia appear to be significant reasons for my lack of performance.

I finally had to go to a goddamn automotive website to find relevant formulas by looking up: 0-60 power to speed.

I confirmed the auto website info with some imperical studies on the section of the Monroe rail trail between the commuter parking lots and Airplane Park turnaround which I now call the Heritage Trail Salt Flats.

As a result the Power to Weight Calculator now spits out an ETA number with mph calculations.

That is good, because lots and lots of people (from Australia, Europe, Canada, South America—places where they take this cycling shit seriously) come back often to use that calculator, and they will find this little bit of information useful.

Even better, in the process I stumbled across my long standing gross misrepresentation of all this watt training stuff for which I should apologize.

I was checking my work against some final equations that came with a little story about how dropping a penny off a building defies speed calculations because it keeps tumbling and skewing the data.

However, just like with cycling, the penny's ultimate acceleration can be understood inside a totally useful range of worse case, best case scenarios.

I got so excited shaking my head up and down with agreement that I noticed this penny page was on www.aerospaceweb.org.

So I have been wrong all along.

This is rocket science after all.

Sorry.

I WISH

I wish I could tell you it was a textbook case with perfect numbers, but I can't.

A textbook case would prove that a 20 mph pace is less than the force required to lift a full water bottle off the floor and onto the table.

A textbook case would show that a 20 mph pace can happen at only 200 watts with 20 watts headroom to spare.

I do wish that today's ITT on the old Wed night course (which used to be hosted by Dangerous Dan) proved all my numbers, but it didn't.

I wish I could say I went out to do it because of some rational purpose, but I can't.

It all started when I woke up this morning and had an iffy back after yesterday's ride with Andreas.

I knew that shouldn't be, because as far as I remembered I went pretty easy and not too far.

I checked the data and found that my little story about ending up at 400+ (trying to get away from Andreas whom I thought was a trail tourist on a towny bike) was a bit understated.

Actually, my last effort at the Goshen end was 14s @ 502 with a 586 max.

I also noticed I had understated my numerous other efforts to get away from him as well, so I figured a sore back was to be expected.

While I was looking at the 502 effort, I saw the top speed for it was only 21.49, and I know for a fact those kinds of watts will get you well over 30 mph if you hold it for awhile and nothing gets in your way.

I realized I would be better off knowing just exactly how long that would take, given the secondary reason I never got a 20 mph Hump @ 200 watts this summer was because of slowing down for turns… the first reason being the Pulaski headwinds with not a single day of SW air flow, but I can't fix the wind.

Review of all my collected data shows the 18 intersections were the main fixable problem while the hills didn't get in my way much at all.

However, I never like to overwork (it is almost as bad as overtorquing), so I did some calculations to see just how long it takes to get a given number of watts back to a given speed in order for me to do just exactly that much and no more next time on the Hump.

A good short Humplike ride is the old Wednesday Time Trial course (some flats, some hills, some turns, it starts and stops at the same place), so I went over to Big V planning to first check how long it takes to get back to 20 mph with 200 watts from say 10 mph.

I wish I could tell you it takes something like 15 seconds, but I only made it to 19.55 one way and 19.59 the other—out to the S turn and back.

It was 59s out and 63s back, so I guess I don't know what to tell you, except if you want to repace your 200 watts to 20 mph in a timely manner, you will have to bump up your effort to 600 watts for 15 seconds at every intersection before going back to snoozing an easy effort.

Unfortunately, I didn't know that till I got home and looked at the download data.

After the repacing test, I did the TT Course (Hump start, Mt. Eve, Pulaski, Pumkin Swamp, Roe, Round Hill to finish line, 8.3 miles), and the results were unsettling.

I only succeeded with a 19.13, and it took 223 watts to do it.

Hell, last summer I did a full Hump that fast with only 196 watts, and that was into an unfavorable headwind.

On my cool down back to the parking lot, I realized it was false logic assuming a shorter course with fewer intersections would be easier to manage.

The Hump has 18 inertia traps while the TT Course has only 7, but that is about one every mile instead of every 2 miles like the Hump.

While I was figuring that out, I noticed a swish, swish, swishing sound which I thought might be some leaves caught in a caliper.

I stopped to check it out, and dag nab it, if my front wheel wasn't rubbing, because I had closed my caliper more than I knew I shouldn't.

I wish I could tell you I am not an idiot, but I can't.

At least the download data showed the total effort was still less than the force required to lift a full water bottle from the floor onto the table.

He had his head phones on, a big radio type thing taped to his handlebars, big fat tires, no clips, and sweat pants.

I thought, "Good. I can pass him and won't fuck up my warmup."

I went around and on my way, but a little while later I went through some leaves and heard a couple scrunching sounds behind me.

I shot a look to my right (with eyes not head mind you) and saw a bike shadow behind me.

"Fuck that, if he wants to try to stay on my wheel he should get to see what that means."

I kicked the watts up to 200, and the shadow was gone.

A moment or so later, I heard another scrunching and the shadow was back.

"Well, let's see how he likes 250. No fucking tourist is going to be able to hang onto 250."

The shadow was gone, but then it was back, so I thought, "How the fuck is this guy here? Ok motherfucker, see how you like 300."

I pushed past the golf place, and felt things were under control until Duck Farm Road where the shithead was back again.

"Goddammit! What the fuck is wrong with me? How can this headphoned, sweatpanted, towny-biked asshole still be on my wheel?"

I bumped the ante to 400 for awhile, but the turd-face was still there when I got caught in some trail traffic and he backed off.

I pushed to Goshen and turned back toward home to find it wasn't the tourist behind me, but a rider in red I had seen in Chester whom I hadn't recognized because of the sun in my eyes.

I figured I better go see who it was, so I turned back toward Goshen and caught him a little ways up South Street.

"Fuck me!"

It was Andreas Runggatscher, winner of numerous Humps and mainstay OFF THE FRONT OF THE FRONT FRONT GOUP, who admitted to having jumped in and replaced the tourist guy the moment I went around him.

He must have spent the whole way from Chester to Goshen, laughing quietly to himself, "Isn't it cute how SlingShot tries to pedal so fast?"

When I got home I got out all my charts and graphs, used a bunch of online calculators (and some of my own formulas) to calculate the precise chance of my dropping Andreas.

Turns out that number is exactly and precisely 0, maybe with a minus sign, so that's probably why (on catching him) I immediately let fly a spray of watt stats and cycling technical arcana—blinding him with science to get his mind off pedaling my ass into eternity.

Good thing I did it too, because he mentioned he was with Joe Straub during his last Kaining and reports his time was 6:41 which puts him on the leader board just between Glenn and Humberto.

She likes to take pictures of herself while she's training. >>>

HUMP REPORT

I just found this podcast online:

Improve Your Pedal Technique - Ian Jackson

It is excellent. Listen through to the end. Near the end he mentions some fine points. It is the technique I've been using by default - ie: when you mentioned the wine glass warmup at Humberto's house, I've used wine glass as my pedal technique since then. By default , it is doing the 'dishtowel'… constant 'on' of pull push.

I don't know that I agree with the pedal stroke w/ breathing adjustment that they discuss… rather you go 'off', or rest at other times, such as when you stand; coast; when the paceline slows up , etc… if you rest on an outbreath, you risk getting a herky jerky stroke IMO....

You may have misunderstood the breathing adjustment. It is just standard Yoga technique and meant to break you out of the habit of gulping.

Any accomplished vocalist will tell you that the first step in learning a new song is to step through the sheet and place breathing prompts.

The towel exercise is something I came up with last year to explain to Mary how I wanted her turning her pedals with her legs just like she would turn a capstan with her arms.

Just goes to show you how the obvious realities of the natural world are subject to parallel development from any place on earth… and why Leah exclaimed last year on the Heritage Trail, "This is just like the top trainers in California are doing it!"

Mary set up a Computrainer course trying to mimic Kain (15% grade, point 75 miles), and this morning she did this (which equals "Exceptional, domestic pro" for MEN) using her Spun Crystals… >>>

Those without power meters might like to notice that her time would beat the current Kain World Record, if we could get her to calm down and pay attention outdoors.

Remember, like I stole from Caesar Milan and edited, "Calm assertive spin."

Soon I will post the world's simplest explanation and convertor for watts to speed.

Calculations match the simplified chart on The Widder's 23+ Hump pages. >>>

The Spun Crystals are meant to address such madness as the Elite Pursuit Riders performances shown by the image linked at right. >>>

Note the back pressure on the pedal stroke as it approaches TDC. Think about how much power is being lost in just that alone. Look at how much of the rest of the back stroke is vectored against forward momentum and is soaking up engergy from the opposite leg.

We have increased Mary's power to weight output to Cat 3 for MEN @ 5 minutes by addressing just those types of form breaks with no significant strength training at all.

It continues to drive me nuts how often testing is done merely on a population, and the results are assumed to be "normal" as if measuring normal weight among high-school students today would not show a significantly higher number than when I was young.

Since Bianchi trains with power, he knew immediately what that meant and took a big loud inhalation like he was a reefer junky.

I just this minute did a review using numbers of that performance plugged into an online calculator to see how close I could get the online numbers to match actual real world results.

The online calculator is set up so you can put in numbers from two performances for a side by side comparison.

I calibrated the online calculator using numbers from my 1-hr which beat Widder's best in distance by 30 feet, so the caluclator was matching my exact distance to my exact watts.

19.3 mi / 1-hr @ 208 watts

Then I expanded the same settings to my best full Hump of 204 watts for 34.2 miles while removing the 80 ft gain in elevation (.785% slope overall) at the end point of my Widder Beating 1-hr (past the Camel Farm, almost to Lower Road).

The calculations show that would be equivalent to:

21.71 mph avg for 34.2 miles

I believe Bianchi understood all this the moment I said, "My best 2-hr this summer was 203 watts. That was a full Hump then back out to Mt. Eve."

I didn't even have to mention that this was all done with my heart rate in upper Zone 2/lower Zone 3 (all I would allow myself this summer), nor that I had already done a 50 minute 230 watt loop in Florida soon after getting my power meter, nor how surprised I was when I got back to New York, and Joe Straub told me he was holding 220 watts for his own workouts, not to mention Andreas reporting 213 watts for a 22.79 mph average with the front group on one of his Humps.

For those who didn't get to witness my similar performance on the local club century (at 10 lbs lighter) here are the calculations. >>>

<<< But this 'n that should help. >>>

Maybe the same images are in the current version of the book.

CRANKY CLIPS WIDDER'S
KAINTARDED WEB

Today on her first successful, bottom to top, non-stop Kaining, Cranky beat the Widder by a full 21 seconds by posting an 8:37.

Although Cranky's time was still 8 seconds slower than Widder's best, it did snip the threads off her web on this day at these Assaulting games and spurred an impromptu needer, needer, needer, victory dance at the top—which was as distasteful as it was attractive to SlingShot.

Which reminds us, Cranky's time also served to knock SlingShot down a peg on the Leader Board reversing his uptick of yesterday wherein he advanced his Kain specs by a 1 minute improvement, this despite his 3 second further improvement on that time today.

SlingShot was so dismayed by the turn of events, he decided to give Cranky a lesson in training with power but got so frustrated by her inability to understand the difference between torque and watts, he made her get on Widder's bike and had her do some Pop-Coasters—having her spin quick 3-4 stroke bursts and coast while waiting for the watts to display.

Our Shot regained his feeling of equinamity when he noticed her look of extreme shock and understanding as he pointed out the 482 watts she scored on one of the Coasters (almost without feeling it) were 122 more watts than Joe Straub averaged for his own World Record Kaining.

Then Bob continued by showing her techniques to more easily achieve that 482 over the long haul, and things were going quite well until he had her do an advanced drill before he should have.

The CPU was put in average mode, and Cranky was instructed to hold 300 watts for a little ways down the road.

By then SlingShot was so excited (what with the undulating victory dance at the top of Kain and all) he totally forgot how impossible it would be for her to avoid overworking watts without the benefit of training, a quick hand on the start timer, and maybe 2 CPU's.

Therefore, Cranky was handed a bad experience when her watts felt too hard and dropped under 300 by the time she looked for her displayed results at the end.

However, on reviewing the download data afterwards, SlingShot found that Cranky had indeed averaged 310 for 30 seconds, and her effort burned too hot because she started with a 516 spike into a 7 second burst of 358—which must again be compared against Joe Straub's 360 watt Kain World Record.

ARC would like to apologize for SlingShot's plunging Cranky too soon into the deep end.

Here's the graph. >>>

That's why one would want to understand, watts, torque, and physics inside out before beginning strength training.

And this could still be one's favorite photo ever. >>>

At one point Cranky mentioned that women are significantly more susceptable to ACL tears (knee) than men—which to me sounded like just another excuse for women to continue riding couches and slugging down beers.

I asked for a link to the study and went over it today only to find that (ironically) the solution for women is to undertake the exact same conditioning routines as would be given to men in order to avoid such tears.

A training program for women specifically designed to mitigate ACL tears would be indistinguishable from a program for men which incorporated the Functional Movement Screen outlined by the user's link at Chat #4746 below.

You can read the full ACL study about the women for yourself which is linked over here. >>>

Except, I am sure none of you will bother to read it, so I am also providing this quick summary:

Apparently, due to the possible influence of genetics, hormones, and physical structures being different in them, women are rather ill suited for competitive athletics, but are more appropriately designed to remain barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.

However, any woman who is unable to resist taking her tom-boy ass out onto the playing field should stop running like a fucking girl!

Somebody wants to know what IBM stands for.

Unfortunately, the factory is somewhat backfilled, so the (patent applied for) Metatransitive Baseline and Gravity Reductive Solenoidistrators (MTBGRS for short) will not make it into final production til next Spring.

However, enough of the newest version Straub Swatter foundation parts (hung on the cheapest frame I could find) should be ready for a test run later this week—maybe on the great Kain itself.

Coming home from the underground cycloclonistronic laboratory I ran across Spin Guy who has been doing 50 mile loops on the Heritage Trail and 80 mile loops when extending his ride elsewhere in order to stay in rather spectacular shape.

I hope we can all come together and agree to hate him for it.

AMPLIFIER

What is wrong with you, SlingShot?

We heard you went out today and did another Nm to Watts test, because some turdbrain couldn't understand your insistance that a bicycle is an amplifier.

First you double checked the online calculator that has been linked on the Cycling Performance Simplified references list for three months or more.

It confirmed Nms to Watts conversion is 1 to 1.

Then you did a little test up the first part of Gibson Hill Road and found that the Powertap showed 15x amplification for the Watts at the wheel over the Nms at the pedal.

Then you came back down the hill and tried it again with a less efficient spin to find a high cadence netted a power gain factor of 0.105124134 over a slow candence on the same climb.

Who the fuck cares about such a minor performance gain?

Ok, so the Tour de France has been won by as little as 7 seconds in a three week ride, who do you think you are, some sort of Elite Athlete?

Why do you think he hasn't had anything to say about all the Straub Swatter talk?

His numbers say: 5:40.79.

Also I'd be guessing he probably has a life. >>>

HUMP REPORT

Today Widder took the rain opportunity to compare Computrainer to Powertap.

First she tried to make a Kaining.

Unfortunately, Computrainer only allows a 15% grade while Kain is 17% at the .5 mile marker, so no clear comparison was possible.

However, she approximated the climb, repeated the same cadence, and came close to the same elapesed time but with lower HR, lower watts, and lower perceived effort.

No kain but Kain.

She then went on to compare Computrainer to Powertap on the road for something similar to the Hump.

She chose the "3and7tenthscourse" (which is similar to Pulaski from the Jolly Onion to the top of Hard Core Hill), and found that the Computrainer netted significantly slower average mph for similar watts measured with the Powertap on the actual road.

Her 199 watts bought her a 17.1 mph average, whereas on the road 208 watts got her 21.5 from Jolly Onion during the Toe Clip test last summer, plus 174 watts gave her a 19.3 on the first hour of the Hump last year uphill into the wind.

The conclusion is that the Computrainer "feels" very similar to real world road watts measured by the Powertap, but Computrainer significantly under-reports the speed a person trained by SlingShot can wrangle out of the same effort and watts on the actual open road.

Here, give 'em this. >>>

CAUTION: If you don't care about your performance don't bother looking at this, because it will just aggravate you. >>>

The statement was, "I only want to know exactly how much force is being applied to the pedals."

The response was, "Why would you want to know that?"

The best part was how they didn't seem to believe the answer which was, "So I can do things like make Widder one minute faster on Kain in just a couple of months with little or none of what most people consider training."

At left is linked her performance in July, and at right is another performance in September when she was going out for an "easy spin," and I said, "You do know you'll be going past Kain, don't you? If you feel like it, try this…"

At right is linked her improved performance.

Both links have a rollover for the other (8:29 vs. 9:29), but they are divided here for those with cheap-ass altnernate browser's lacking rollover functions.

They have probably misunderstood your use of the language so weren't talking about anything you've been explaining here anyway.

Some people want to improve in their sport, some people do not.

STRAUB SWATTER

Yesterday my Top Secret Super Duper Special-Order Specific Trainer and Straub Swatter Bicycle arrived, and it only took all summer to get here.

Actually, it is only the prototype version, and the final version will probably take another whole summer to get here, so I wasted no time in taking it out for a test ride and de-kinking with Widder.

I planned the first serious test for Iron Forge, so near Kain I asked Mary, "How do you feel?"

Due to the proximity of Kain she winced, "Ok… wait! Why? Yesterday was Quad City. NO KAIN."

I calmed her with, "Of course not, I just wondered if you felt good enough to go up Iron Forge hard to see if I can stay with you."

"That I can do."

Unfortunately, our test was a little skewed, because when I said "hard" I did not mean "personal best" which she did while causing me to think about retiring from cycling after running a truck over my brand new Straub Swatter.

Fortunately, Mary told me she thought she had a personal best immediately at the top, so I said, "Good to hear it. The 450 plus pace was really depressing me about how the new Straub Swatter didn't seem to be helping me all that much."

In any case, by the time we got through the prison Widder understood the tests were not meant to be personal bests but merely comparison studies of last week's performances (on a regular bike) vs. my new Straub Swatter, so she went a little easier up Demarest.

The data downloads showed the best ever example of my summary for our process from the Cycling Simplified Book which is:

1) Fewer watts for every mph
2) Less torque for every watt
3) Fewer heart beats for every watt
4) Less effort for every heart beat

For the hardest part of Demarest (just under 1 tenth mile) I was 9 seconds faster than five days ago, and the numbers stack up like this:

Torque/Watts @Cadence

36.52/219 @38 rpm (before)
36.30/244 @60 rpm (after)

That is nearly 10% improvement, and get this: with one heart beat per minute less (125 vs. 126).

When Widder saw those numbers (especially after I said, "Watch this," and rode away from her with no effort at the top), she gasped, "I think… I finally understand."

Look how the graph shows my effort was even smoother. >>>

We'll see. >>>

Therefore, the new criteria for posting in the Chatterbox is hereby incremented from the current 10 minute Kaining, to a more appropriate 5:40.79 Kaining which is a number more in line with bare minimum expectations for actual riders.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.

The number one rule is, "Don't fucking show up wearing pink!"

His assistant, Nancy, agreed.

Doctor patient privilege dissallows them from lying about such stuff, so the rest of you can just lick your wounds through your toothless gums and forget about it.

QUAD CITY

This afternoon Widder and SlingShot went out searching for hills in hopes of working out details of the torque to watts anomoly before leaving for Florida winter training.

Widder has been unable to match her uphill torque on the flats, and their new program focuses on torque over watts, because that gives a truer reading of what is going on at the pedal.

SlingShot has been able to match his flat performance more closely to his uphill torque, but he is currently glued, duct taped, and clamped together like a fine instrument in for repair and cannot risk something breaking loose during an extended effort before the luthier's glue dries.

He decided to put Widder on some hard hills to confirm his theory about how her form changes when attacking a flat as apposed to a hill.

The idea was to climb a few hills to get the "feel" in Widder's legs then hit the flats and gather data for a comparison.

They started in the Big V and headed over to Ridgebury.

Hump racers are probably aware that Rte 12 runs somewhat parallel to Ridgebury, and it is probably also called Lower Road because it is in fact lower compared to Ridgebury—which goes up and along the ridge.

Those who climb Ridgebury every Saturday have most likely noticed that four intersections are found on the left after cresting the top as the road flattens to follow the ridge.

A few of those riders may also understand that those intersections are for Post, Ginea Hill, Delmar Hill, and Stony Bar roads, which come directly up from Rte 12 while providing shorter but steeper climbs.

Today's climbing started with Ginea Hill, because it has sometimes been used as an alternate course and is considered tough.

Turns out it ain't so tough, but SlingShot did make note that he would suggest somebody like Kevin should attack the bottom real quick, ease up as people blow themselves on the first little bit of steep, then sit back and hammer all their haggard asses all the way to the top while pretending it is a tough climb.

SlingShot would mention this, if he wasn't already totally certain Kevin already does just that.

Since Post Road is never mentioned by anybody, Bob and Mary decided it must be hard, so they looped around and back down Post to start from a standstill at the bottom.

Post was in fact steeper than Ginea Hill, but it only became Kain-like for a few yards of the second section, so apparently Kains are harder to find than you might think.

They then popped over Delmar (which actually climbs up from Ridgebury), then dropped down Stony Bar and looped around to come up Carpenter to Stony Bar and back up to Ridgebury.

Then they meandered down to Lime Kiln and back up to Rte 12 where they took a side trip down, up, and down again Onion Road just for a fun extra climb after their already completed ride they are now calling Quad City.

After that Maple, Cross, and Pulaski were hardly noticed except for the blazing sun and golden leaves along shining fields of fall, and the hard flat interval on Pumkin Swamp showed clearly Mary has a form break when she gets distracted by how quickly the pace becomes 25+ when she tried but failed to match her hill effort.

Anyway, the jury is still out why she can't torque it up on the flats, but it is quite certain those Ridgebury climbs are nothing like Kain.

However, there is this. >>>

Well, I'm still not wearing pink.

But how about this guy riding beside you? >>>

Doug and Danny love climbing in my basement.

Mary has been back on her Computrainer while we are working out the final details of the torque vs. watts anomaly.

Just like the SRM, the Computrainer does not give a separate reading for torque at the pedal relative to watts power output at the wheel.

The Computrainer takes strain measurements at the tire, and the SRM measures right off the pedals, so neither device has any way to differentiate pedal to wheel force.

The Powertap looks at the strain on the hub, so it is in the perfect position to know, "This is what came in from the pedal, and this is what is going out to the tire."

However, Mary reports that the Computrainer does do a very good job of providing valid kinesthetic feedback for such as: spin up to 200 watts and maintain it in an easy gear, then click up three harder and notice how much harder it is to maintain the same 200 watts as the crank arm sucks up your effort while cadence drops off.

Obviously, you can use the Computrainer to get a handle on the value of a high cadence spin, if you keep in mind that Mary also reports the Computrainer starts by being harder to get up to 200 watts (than with her Powertap outdoors), but on arriving at 200 watts the Computrainer effort levels out and is much easier to hold than would be the same power with the Powertap on the road.

During the process of finding all this out, Mary noted that there appears to be no way in hell to get the Computrainer to feel as hard as Kain—no matter what the fucking fuck you do in any motherfucking gear you choose. . . And this morning she hit a 1056 watt spike on the start of Tirorati while doing the Computrainer Harriman loop!

Happily, there is a group of local club riders working on their own device which they say will do as good a job as they will ever need for modeling Kain. >>>

Look what's happened to Joe Straub! >>>

BANG PLOP

Last night the best ever Mythbusters caught my attention just as I was going out for my walk, so I delayed a moment to see the outcome.

It was one of those perfect physics questions just the way I like it.

No math, no calculations, no formulas, no nonsense, just a simple, "If you do this… this will happen."

In this case it was one of my favorite physics truisms: "If a bullet is fired from a pistol perfectly level, and another bullet is dropped from the exact same height at the exact same moment, which will hit the ground first?"

According to classical physics the answer is that both bullets will hit the ground at the same time, but has anybody ever actually tried it?

My first thought was, "Of course both bullets will plop at the same time. It is the kind of basic physics that explains how objects move in the real world, and why a banjo plucking, horn playing, skinny assed vegetarian schoolmarm can beat two of the strongest meat eating riders from the FRONT OFF THE FRONT OF THE FRONT FRONT GROUP up Kain while holding on only 40 seconds off the wheel of one of the county's most renowned strong-man climbers…, but has anybody ever actually tried the bullet test?"

Certainly worth a delay in going out for a walk.

The Mythbusters team put together a mechanism to drop the bullet as soon as the pistol fired, got it all timed up using high speed video—the type of high definition 1000's of frames per second video that was promised for the Olympics but never used to show that swimmer beating the other guy in order to get in his eight Gold's.

After they got their drop timing all squared away, the Mythbusters team moved their bullet dropper out to where tests had shown the fired bullet would hit the ground.

This was all done indoors, so no crosswinds, etc.

They put down some cloth to make the bullet strike more obvious, and I was breathless waiting for the test.

M  O  T  H  E  R  FUCKER! It worked.

And that is why a scrawny musician can beat lots of big manly he-men, and why the next thing on my plate is to change the time of the Kain Assault World Record to something a little bit faster.

He then commenced an impromptu roll-down which took him all the way to the railroad crossing near Ronald Reagan Blvd where he decided he had been hit by a train or something.

I only put this together because I heard he went down on a rail crossing, and I knew there was only one place in the County where that might occur (the place mentioned), and I was looking at it on a map when I realized it was actually at the foot of Kain Road.

Further confirmation was provided by Palletman when he got real quiet after I mentioned my theory.

So how long do you think it has been since Doug has posted here, given he is not even qualified by Kaining to do so.

You fat shit!

This is no joke.

I hope you break your back!

SRM CAVEAT

Joe Straub just sent us his SRM data from his most recent Kaining.

The file confirms what I have been ranting about regarding heart rate vs. power meter training, plus it confirms in a big way what I have been saying about being careful what you believe. The easy stuff first.

On Joe's graph linked at right you will see 3 numbered instances of power spikes with associated delays in heart rate response.

You may remember I have often said, "By the time your heart rate monitor gets around to telling you that you've got a problem, it is already too late."

Number 1 shows a power spike followed immediately by a heart rate spike, while numbers 2 & 3 show more clearly how the reponse to the power spike can be drawn out over time.

Power (effort) drops off but delayed physiologic response (shown by heart rate) continues to rise.

If you were only looking at heart rate data (say during a time trial or precise interval training), you could be already redlined over your limit well before your trip computer notices. >>>

You may recall all my whining about over-torquing, and guess what?

A Powertap gives a separate reading for torque input vs. watts output, but the SRM ignores torque altogether, so there is no way to show at any given point of Joe's Kaining just where he was pushing his pedals harder than he needed in order to get a given power output.

Even worse, while trying to get a handle on Joe's power to weight vs. race category for his climb I found that the SRM software provides a simple way to adjust the implied torque to power ratio so that you could easily show the data as saying he averaged 205 watts instead of the 350 watts shown when he sent it.

Everybody with an SRM should tape a ten dollar-bill to it and send it back to the manufacturer with a note saying, "Please keep this and don't bother me with anymore of your bullshit."

No fucking wonder people are so confused about this shit. >>>

Yesterday, while on a leisure ride in the Bellvale area, it was decided to take our significant others up Kain Road…unbeknownst to them!

The other racer in our party and I clicked our power meters for an exact timed interval.

Attached is my file. This time I rode the climb in: 6:22.

The other racer in my party rode 6:fortysomething…I can't remember.

Interestingly enough, I rode the beginning quite slowly and never redlined the effort.

Either there is something to this strategy, or there is a big difference between 5:40 and 6:20.

On another sideline note (an effort to propagate rumor), what was Doug doing in Warwick?

They don't have flat ground in Middletown to ride "intervals"?

I suspect he was reconning Kain Road for an unofficial timing.

It sucks he never got there…or did he? Maybe he fell over on the steepest part of Kain? Your thoughts?

Have a great weekend!
Joe

In the meantime, you might have that other racer in your party reviewing the photos at the top of this page with the understanding the leftmost photo is of the schoolmarm who held the first world record on Kain and which time (for that first world record) still beats their own attempt.

That will put you in good position to explain to them how backing off a little (and not redlining) would actually help them, and how you yourself would have been able to go much faster on yesterday's assault if you had not panicked at the last moment in order to best the previous world record by one second.

Like I said, thoughts coming soon, but first I must do my morning exercises and get ready to spot Widder's bench presses.

As you may already know, the moment we asked people for actual objective data about their true performance, they all headed for the hills and never reported.

Of course, Joe Straub and Glenn Babikian have reported (as did you), but they are champions, so that is expected.

Everybody else has done everything they possibly can to avoid giving us (and certainly themselves) any idea of just where they stand and just where they can improve, despite the fact we went out of our way to provide a process to garner objective data even without a power meter, to whit: KAIN ROAD.

However, vast numbers of riders have actually gone even further out of their way to avoid reporting objective non-negotiable data to us.

Kevin Haley is likely to be the next one to step into that boat… but I have said too much.

My average HR was 129.

Group rides have gotten real easy to stay with.

Even when Paris was pulling 26+ on Weiner Ridge, my HR was 147, so I almost didn't notice.

Widder had a momentary antibiotic and menopausal hot-flash brownout earlier on Toleman Road but was good to go afterwards.

We had to leave the ride after 34 miles to come home and open the gallery, so I didn't see it happen, but I would bet Gapper gave 'em hell at the end.

He was riding conservative the whole time we were there and never once caused a big surge when he took over at the front.

Saving himself to kick all their asses at once, no doubt.

Of course, Twin George was peddling his wares as usual, but nobody was in a purchasing mood.

Not I, who am only interested in the important snake-related discussions.

Otherwise, you will not be able to live with yourself.

Even the SRM appears to be lacking the torque vs. watts measurement which is essential and provided by the Powertap.

I am only mentioning this again because somebody came in to return one of Widder's bras, and they let it slip that a certain famous local cyclist is going to be getting, "… a cheap power meter."

Apparently it was supposed to be a secret, so I am not going to say who it is, but I did get excited about the whole affair then found it odd that our little loose lipped reporter got very mute when I asked what kind, and assumed [name withheld] was getting somebody else's used SRM.

Afterwards I thought, "Fuck! What if Mr. [name withheld] gets one of those cheap bullshit so-called power meters that are really less useful than a mph trip computer? He really is a serious rider, and he really does deserve to "know" about his performance."

So I better say this one more time.

The cheapest true power meter, and ironically at the same time the best (due to giving a clear distinction between pedal torque vs. power watts output and coming out of the box with the best software), is the newest version Powertap with ceramic bearings.

Of course, the earlier non-ceramic versions are fine also, just not quite as fast. I use one of those myself and do not begrudge the Widder her faster ceramic version.

Plus, the even cheaper wired Powertaps are good to go also, except you give up the possibility of having a training partner ride behind you acting as a Bruyneel type spotter, so you can focus on technique without looking at your CPU.

In summary, nothing I have seen has yet come close to matching the Powertap for good solid data, ease of use, and actual true metering of power facts.

There. I've said it, and now I can sleep at night.

BTW: The optional cadence sensor is absolutely positively no questions asked mandatory.

COPPERHEAD SIGHTING

Early July 2009, on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, I was hiking just ahead of Tony the Target (Anthony Defeo, aka: Chuckie) and his two large dogs.

I almost stumbled upon a large and very black snake lying across the trail.

Said snake was about 5 feet long and 1 1/2 inches thick.

I backed up and turned around to warn T and the dogs about the snake, only to get yelled at by T for not using proper procedure.

The snake did not want to move but finally did after much coaxing.

We continued on our hike, shaken but unhurt by our encounter with a Copperhead disguised as a Black Rat Snake.

We weren't expecting that, knowing as how they usually are dressed as Garter snakes.

Otherwise, in your account you could have mentioned that proper procedure consists of dropping to the ground, crawling up real slow next to the head of the snake in question and checking for the one thing a Copperhead cannot disguise: its cat-like eyes.

Once confirming a Copperhead by close up head inspection, it is customary to kiss the forhead as a nodding respect for such clever impersonation.

Be careful though, because often Timber Rattlesnakes will pretend to be disguised Copperheads, and they can (in fact) masquarade the cat eyes.

However, one can easily confirm a Rattlesnake's faux Copperhead ruse once you get close enough to the head by listening for their quiet chuckling.

Rattlesnakes can never hide their bemusement at having tricked another person into kissing their forehead as if they were a Copperhead.

Never kiss a Rattlesnake on the forehead. It gives them too much satisfaction.

As an aside: how the fuck did you hack your way into the Chatterbox anyway?

It is reserved for qualified Kainer's only, and is not open to mere run of the mill snake lickers.

Looking at you and all the other two seaters, I would guess you had a number 1 through a number 14.

What did you learn?

I have to say, they all had nothing beyond one or two tenths mile on a climb, more or less, so none of them are likely to even beat Joe Straub, let alone be a problem for Ryan.

I probably should stop calling them Kainophobes, because it turns out their fears are not all that irrational.

Oh, I almost forgot, I learned something else too.

There's a hill over near Amity that I am not going to try in my big chainring again for awhile.

Has very similar content to my old Copperhead (Not) article.

Reminds me of the time Tony the Target and I got off our bikes to check if we were looking at one, saw it was a water snake flattened with an obiously broken neck so dead, but it sprung to life in a hissy fit striking when we tried to brush it off the road.

Probably saved my life a few years later when a rattlesnake on the Suncoast Trail in Florida exhibited the same flattened with broken neck behavior trying to soak up a little warmth from the pavement, but I knew better.

Also reminds me of the woman screaming at me to stop my bike on the Heritage Trail last week because, "… there's a Copperhead up there…" swimming around in the puddle beside the trail.

I just shouted, "Impossible!" and kept on spinning without even bothering to stop and check it.

How's that going to happen?

Do you have to get together with him and show him special riding secrets?

Therefore, I can easily instruct him from afar.

Also, these "secrets" are as subtle as they are powerful, so I can freely publish them without fear that Ryan's competition will learn them to use against him.

Most will assume the following is gibberish.

Yo Ryan, you will recall how I showed you the overview of Spun Crystals earlier this year by single handedly pulling you for an entire Hump at a pace somewhat faster than would be accomplished by the group (working together) whom you usually ride with, but your effort was maybe a quarter of what your effort with the group would have been, and my own effort was itself rather mild.

Here is how to expand that performance onto Kain.

Learn your spin exactly as you would learn to play a smooth, fast, precise two handed scale in parallel on the piano.

Keep this in mind: the piano scale has only eight notes, but your crank has 360.

Learn each of those 360 "notes" (and the transitional microtones in-between) using exactly the same techniques you used learning all the various instruments you have proven your facility on by teaching them to hundreds of band members in the school system.

Master left and right separately then combine them, constantly tearing the process apart and reassembling it as progressive layers of control are revealed to you through direct haptic interaction with the crank arm.

Work on basic technical exercises first, expand to bits and pieces of measures, then full measures (with pickup notes), move to phrasing and finally put the piece together as a whole.

I guess the cycling scale is really closer to a 12 note chromatic scale than it is to a mere 8 note major, minor, harmonic, modal, or the like, still the process is the same.

After learning left and right (remembering that combining the two will change each to some degree), put them together as a parallel run up, except on your bicycle the spin will of necessity be played at an interval of a perfect fifth or so.

Get it? I'm sure you do.

Then take your scale work over to Kain, stay seated for the entire climb (17% more efficient), stay on your bartops in order to open up your hip flexion angle (more powerful), and keep the highest cadence you can.

If you need to stand and rest, do so sparingly.

You will prove you are not only master of the wind section but also have the chops in the string section to continue teaching all the other Kain riders how to play second fiddle.

You'll have to supply your own chain.

I believe there is a pile of them near the bottom of the next to the last bump on the way up Kain.

GLENN BABIKIAN NAMED
KAIN ASSAULT CHAIR

There has been some complaint that no clear link to a Kaining and Chatterbox application exists on the ARC website.

We asked SlingShot about it, and he said, "I did not want to make it easy. I wanted to make it hard… almost impossible. Look, Joe Straub figured it out, so how hard could it be?"

In any case, we all decided it would be better to smooth the process out a little (given lots of people will only be able to do it on a weekend, and Widder can't get off work to take photos), so Glenn Babikian has been appointed Kain Assault Chair and given Official Timer status.

We had to do that after Widder almost strangled SlingShot when he started doing web searches for automated race timers with digital chip systems to use for setting up actual time trials.

Everybody already has Glenn's e-mail address, so that should make things easier, even though Cranky will still have to suffer the indignation of having Widder time her own attempt at qualifying.

Otherwise, congratulations to Glenn on his new position and also for the upgrade of his own Kaining time from "self" timed to "ARC Official" timing.