U2 Manager's Speech

Excerpt:
"It seems that the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire..."

I've never been a U2 fan, but I can tell you this. Since the band has chosen to allow this drivel to represent them, on their website; if I were buying their music I'd stop: These kinds of slanderous (and now libelous) accusations of criminality on legitimate organizations like bittorrent are not acceptable. Thousands of people use bittorrent for legitimate purposes everyday, and the only people who have any right to complain are the ISP's who may not really be able to afford that level of bandwidth use.
The beauty of the internet right now is the lack of this kind of bullshit regulation: Shutting down your connection for using P2P services. This is why people are so concerned about net neutrality; often to the point where they forget that some non-neutral actions are needed for quality of service (example: My university used to give priority to traffic on port 80, which is what you use for browsing web pages).

Sorry that this doesn't relate to cycling, but it's high time music consumers stop paying people to steal from them, take away their rights, and destroy copyright law.*

* Note, I recognize that they aren't stealing from us. However, since they believe they can call copyright infringement stealing I don't see why I can't call collusion, price fixing, and lobbying stealing. In the end, we lose money they get and that's their argument for why copyright infringement is stealing. We'll say both our arguments rest on the same false premise, so we can give them up at the same time :).

Beautiful Weekend Rides

This weekend was beautiful in Lincoln, as was today actually (I was at work).

Saturday I managed to get in about 20 miles before I realized my toes were cold enough to hurt. Oh well, it was one of the longest rides I've had since November!

Sunday I got in about the same, except it was just numb instead of pain. These summer road shoes just don't do well in winter weather. I suppose I should open my wallet and buy some covers huh?

I got buzzed on a side road by a little grey compact sedan. I don't know why on a residential road, with little traffic, you have to wait until there's a parked car and an oncoming car to pass the cyclist you've been following?
So, anyway, I caught up to him at a stoplight and buzzed him back. Don't worry, no touchy touchy. That's about my only wannabe story. You don't get much on a short ride.

Today my bike was so squeaky I couldn't bear to not clean it. Not to mention it was disgustingly grungy (and I meant everything, not just the drivetrain). These first days of spring coming up are going to be ugly for maintenance time.
I've been thinking about setting 200 miles a week as a goal. Since about 40 of that is commute miles, and probably half of the rest will be on group rides I think it won't be too boring. That's really key though. While I'd like to get faster, fitter, farther, etc. If I'm not enjoying it I'm not going to do it. Why ruin a good thing with obsessive training? I'm not going to win any races.

Damn Cold

I seem to be coming down with a cold. Boooooo!

Stupid winter.

On a lighter note, watch this it's quite entertaining: Judge Judy, Cyclist V. Dog

Dogs and Trails

Trails are more dangerous than roads. It's strange but true. There are so many "look I just bought my first bike" riders, walkers, groups of teenagers, Freds (sorry, I hate the term), psychos (racers who ride on trails), and dog walkers that trails are an infinite source of minor collisions.

Sometimes people and other things die: Old people, kids, dogs, dogs, and dogs.

Now, I'm an animal lover and especially a dog lover which is why it really pains me to see idiots who shouldn't own dogs walking them. You know the kind: They apologize when their dog almost runs under your bike. Did you know that trails are a dangerous place for a dog, especially an uncontrolled one on a long leash (long is greater than 6').

I wonder how many injuries their are from this sort of crap.


So let's rate the danger of various things you find on trails, on a scale from 1 to 10. 10 being something will probably die on a weekly basis and 1 being they might talk to you and say something rude.
Dogs -- 9
Walkers (1 or 2) -- 3
Kids -- 2
Kids Parents -- 6
"I just bought my first bike" -- 8 (if you ignore them); 3 (if you notice them)
Freds -- 2
Serious Cyclists -- 1.5 (they're more likely to be rude)
Trail racers -- 2
Groups of teenagers -- 2 (you're guaranteed to get yelled at)
Squirrels -- 0

Squirrels was the insulting punchline, just in case you missed it ;). I always think I'm going to hit them, and I never do.

Slimy Riding

I managed to get in two rides this weekend. One saturday and one sunday. Amazingly I got a 25 mile ride in on Saturday: It was cold, and icy. I probably spent 45 minutes walking the bike across huge ice patches, and other times just riding slow to watch for new ice patches.
Strangely, most people seemed to stay in on Saturday. I ended up going home early due to numb toes: My shoes really are summer shoes, they ventilate much too well for this weather (and I wrap sandwich bags around my toes to minimize that).

I did slide out and wreck on Saturday. I'm still not entirely convinced my rear derailleur is quite where it was before the slide out; but it finds all my gears about as quick as ever so it must be in my head.
Not a terribly big deal, I wasn't doing more than 8-10 and just slid on my butt. I'm not sure how I got out of my pedals, that just happened (they're single release).

Later on, Saturday still, I discovered my right clip was loose.

With my shoes stuck to the pedal I rode into the shop and they pried it out with a screw driver. Nice guys over there at Blue's Bike btw.

Today I got in a measely 12 miles before I got cold. Strangely there were tons of people out today. I got quite a few "it's icy isn't it" to which I thought "you should have seen it yesterday."

Weather Shielding

It was finally a good enough day to ride to work today, so I rode. Threw on my gear and rode in. I had to dismount at one point on the trail due to ice (in the morning I could have rode over it, very carefully but I prefer not to; in the evening I could barely walk over it). Other than that, the less than 30 degree morning felt warm, and the 35 degree afternoon felt really warm!

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a weather shell: http://www.pearlizumi.com/product.php?mode=view&pc_id=45&product_id=1150521

Let me just say, these are worth every dime. Most stuff in cycling is way more expensive than it is helpful, but this keeps you warm. I wore a cotton/poly sweater (I'm cheap), a tshirt, and the shell and was cooking (my whole torso and arms) on the ride to work at about 25 degrees and I wore just the sweater and the shell back at about 35 degrees and was cooking again!
You just don't feel the wind on your torso or neck at all. It's really quite cool.
My hands froze of course. Those thin $10 special gloves just don't cut it, I really need some cycling gloves.

I also wore my shoes of course. Now, these are definitely summer shoes. The toes breathe very well. So I put some sandwich baggies over the toes of my socks and that made it about as good as my old sneakers (which have no special breathing feature). Still cold toes when I got home.

Once again though, get a shell if you don't have one; it's worth every penny.