Team Time Trial

The Tour Mediterraneen, an early season affair in the south of France, give some ProTour teams the opportunity to stretch their collective legs. It also provides the perfect setting for 2nd-tier teams to see how they stack up against the big guns. Wednesday morning's opening stage was a 26.2 km Team Time Trial (TTT).

Caisse d'Epargne - Iles Balears
The boys of the Balearic Islands know how to get it done. This is what a TTT should look like... a nice, tight paceline, only the first two guys in their aerobars, the rider off to the side moving back while staying tight to the line. Poetry in motion. These guys took 1st, and pretty handily.

Ag2r PrevoyanceAlso a ProTour team, Ag2r have this technique down. You've got to wonder, though: do they draw straws to decide who has to ride behind Samuel Dumoulin (in 2nd wheel in this picture). Dude is 5'2"!!! There's nothing to draft off! In other news, Dumoulin got dropped and finished 5:44 down.

Unibet.comThe story behind the Question Mark on their jerseys has been done to death. Now, I know these guys are new to the ProTour, and I know that they had to drop a whole bunch of money on new "?" kits, but honestly, you have to wonder: What did the guy in 2nd wheel do to deserve a road bike in a TTT? All of his teammates have pretty, matching bikes. Did he sleep with the DS's daughter? I think he slept with the DS's daughter. I bet it was worth it, too.

Elk Haus-SimplonI have never heard of Elk Haus. I think it's pretty respectable that they only finished 2:33 behind Caisse d'Epargne. However, everything about them screams "We're out of our league!" None of their bikes match, few of their helmets match, they're all over the road. It's like the Rutgers team got invited to a National Calendar race... you can sort of see it, can't you? Blake's the guy with the aero helmet, digging deep but not quite aware that there's nobody on his wheel. Will's the guy pulling everyone, thinking "god I hate time trials", and Mark (an equally capable cottage of wattage) is the guy in the back, thinking "god I hate time trials". Charlie, potentially the best time trialist on the team, decided to skip today's stage to go ride a MTB uphill for 4 hours. Seriously, Elk Haus, get it together. Oh well, at least you weren't Dead F'in Last.

DFLWhich brings us to team DFL. The name actually stands for Driving Force Logistics, but it might as well stand for Dead F'in Last, 'cause that's where these poor schmucks wound up. It's not their fault, though! I bet if team management, or presenting sponsor Litespeed, had sprung for TT bikes, or at least clip-on aerobars, they might've stood a chance. They don't even have matching arm-warmers, for crying out loud! Oddly enough, they do have matching helmets. In any event, they came in 3:46 down, in last place by a long ways. At least they beat Dumoulin.

(photos borrowed from Fotoreporter Sirotti and cyclingnews.com)

Technical Writing

Okay. Technical writing is difficult. It's not like regular writing, and lord knows that normal prose is challenging enough. Informal language gives a writer so much leeway with which to dance around a statement that yes, sometimes it is possible to lose one's point in the flowery discourse; at least the wording and pacing can be intuitive.

Technical writing is a whole other beast. This isn't writing a paper for class. Nobody's going to look at what you've written and say "this wasn't great, but it was good... B plus". You are judged on a far more binary scale: Accepted or Rejected. Ideally, the merits of your work, of the underlying science or thought, would be the only metrics on which you are evaluated. Nothing, of course, is ever ideal.

So you spend a year (at the very least) of your life working on a project. You fill notebooks full of ideas, results, afterthoughts, etc. You run into problems that grind your progress to a halt, for which there are no workarounds.

By the time you're writing things up, you've overcome the worst part... that there is no right answer. Nobody designed and ran your experiment beforehand, or approached that novel the way you approach it, or whatever. The whole point of this academic endeavor was to innovate, which meant that you never had a guarantee that success was even possible.

So you've survived this far, and now you get to start writing things up. This is when you hit the ugly part, that linguistic headwind that is technical writing. Sure, it's prose, but it's terse and parsimonious and cotton-mouth dry. It can suck the life out of you, forcing you to condense a year of your life into a few pages. Those monumental problems you had to solve? They get no more than a sentence.

Everything has to be just-so. Your conclusions have to proclaim their own awesomeness, to shout from the hilltops "I AM ALL THAT IS SCIENCE!" but must do so without really using any adjectives. The shorter your work, the better, especially if there's a page limit... any room left over must be yielded to the figures, so that your audience, who will only be glancing at your writing anyway, can guess what your point was.

It's not always so painful, though (but it usually is). Sometimes the words just flow. I find this to be the case when it's the first time I'm writing up a project, when the organization and descriptions of it have been percolating inside me for weeks and months. In those cases, my fingers fly as soon as they touch the keyboard, and before I know it, I have created. Let me tell you, it feels good.

My Baby

Honestly, T-Mobile... "Mannschaft?"

Thanks to Team CSC's noteworthy successes over the past few seasons, many teams have sought to identify whatever magic bullet CSC's Bjarne Riis found to motivate his team. Last season, knowing that CSC had undergone tough army-style training over the winter, everyone from Discovery to Quickstep went paintballing, hiking, rappelling, etc to build team unity. This season, Team T-Mobile is kicking it up a notch.

The German-based team is so committed to the concept of a team that the riders' very bikes will be reminders of their responsibilities to the collective... this is no surprise, after 3 years of the Ullrich-Vinokourov-Kloden "3-pronged attack" implosions. Emblazoned on the toptube of every T-Mobile rider's bike will be the German words for "The Team", as is displayed below on Canadian Michael Barry's bike:

photo courtesy Velonews.com

This bold move has quickly been matched by other ProTour teams. French team Cofidis applied custom stickers to their riders' bikes, extolling the virtues of the "Men of the Team", or "l'Equipement d'Hommes".

Said veteran Cofidis racer Sylvain Chavanel, "Desole, but I do not see what you reporters find so funny. We here at Cofidis are very proud of our equipe, and we emphasize this feeling by conjugating appropriately. It is clever!" [editor: the above should be read with an Inspector Clouseau accent]

David Millar, a Scotsman on the Spanish Saunier Duval team, was less enthusiastic. "I tried to dissuade management," he explained, "but they didn't seem to get that El Serpiente de los Pantalones isn't quite the effect the other teams were going for." His teammate, Iban Mayo, held a much more positive opinion of the motivational tool. "I know that when I have my head down, when I am suffering, I want to see el serpiente de los pantalones and be reminded of the men around me."

Team Discovery, the only ProTour team whose country consists of native English speakers, commissioned a nationally-acclaimed artist to design their version of the now-ubiquitous sticker. With text reading "Euphemism for Male Genitalia", this sticker will be on sale at bike stores around the country, with half of all proceeds going to Ivan Basso's legal defense fund. When asked for comment, US National Champion George Hincapie just shook his head in disgust. Discovery Alumnus/Coach/Moneybags/Cheerleader/Camera-Magnet Lance Armstrong was quick to reply, "I just want these guys to remember what they're riding for."

*****

This post has gotten way out of hand.

Get Down With the Sickness

I woke up on Saturday with a mild fever and a sore throat. When I say woke up, I mean did a quick self-assessment, turned off the alarm clock, and proceeded to sleep until 3pm. I read a book and watched movies all day.

The process was repeated today, although I was feeling good enough towards the end of the day that I survived 90 minutes of ridiculously-easy on the trainer. Still not 100%.

My hero

The only real effect of this, other than a day off the bike, is a completely f'ed sleep schedule. I was working on waking up earlier and earlier last week, and now I'm up at 3am after about 11 hrs of sitting on a couch.

Unlike many of my fellow bike-gamers, I don't usually get sick. Even 48 hrs of sickness is way more than I usually get. Maybe I should've knocked on wood more often? Walked under fewer ladders? Whatever. I need to wake up tomorrow feeling good as new.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I've come to learn that the good things in this world are ephemeral. Good results in the lab? Don't count on 'em. That snap in your legs that gets you out of corners fast? Gone by mid-season. Tolerance for your own facial hair? The awesomeness of a beard, like the awesomeness of anything you really enjoy, is gone in the blink of an eye.

But oh, fear not. There are some things that, if you are truly fortunate, can be constants in your life. I am so humbled, so grateful, so enamored of the good things in my life that have persisted week to week. Life continues to be worth living...

• The "Grease Trucks". Every sandwich you make is named by a convention that would befit IEEE... Fat Knight, Fat Bitch, Fat Cat, and so on. You are open as long as the buses are running, and you never change. Whenever I am hungry, whenever my arteries feel particularly unclogged, I can turn to you for a sandwich made of Cheese-steak, Mozzarella Sticks, Chicken Fingers, French Fries, and lettuce and tomatoes. My heart aches at the very thought of you.
• Drunk undergrad girls. I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole. It's 20 degrees out, but you're wearing exactly enough clothing to veil the undergarments you're so eager to abandon. Your arms and legs are completely bare, but you're far too intoxicated to feel cold. As long as I can filter out the mind-numbing, vapid nonsense you call conversation, I can pretend you're a gorgeous, scantily-clad astrophysicist. Please don't ever talk to me.
• My guys. You know who you are. It doesn't matter what bar we go to. It doesn't matter what the occasion is, or how loud the music is, or who else is in the bar. We have a great time. Life can be a pimp-slap upside the head, but a beer and a teammate just turn things around faster than you can say "Let's play the 'Do You Know Don?' game". When all is said and done, you're good people.
  

A Call for Abstracts

2007 PISCATAWAY HEALTHY LIVING EDUCATIONAL GRIEVANCE MEETING (PHLEGM)

NEWS ABSTRACT SUBMISSION has a deadline of FEBRUARY 15th We are pleased to announce TWO AWARDS. The Awards include "Most Innovative Cure for Coughing and "PHLEGM Award for Best Negative Reinforcement Therapy". Awards will be given in the form of Lozenges. Earplugs will be provided for all Meeting participants, so that they can finally get some sleep at night. ----------------------------- The first PHLEGM will be held during March 30 - 31, 2007 at Busch Campus,Piscataway, NJ PHLEGM is an annual American Society of Annoyed Roommates regional meeting. The theme of the meeting for this year is "Bridging the Gap between Roommate Politeness and Actually Getting Some Sleep". Opening Remark: Dr. Ima Gonacoff (Chronic Cougher); Keynote speech: Dr. Mike Offsuks(Institute of Cough Studies) and Dr. Anita Annoyou(NIH); The conference intends to provide a welcoming environment for graduate and undergraduate students to present their research and get feedback from peer students and faculty. In light of this aim, the registration will be free and people who cough a lot will be beaten with baseball bats.

Things that Get to Me

1. Having a coach who lives in Texas and has a Sugar-Momma.

Don:
"can't go outside today, riding the trainer instead. i want to ride 400m uphill, but i'm thinking that instead, i'll just do 60 or 90 sec in the saddle in a big(ish) gear at a low(ish) cadence, and that'll be my hill interval."

Coach:
"That works. Why can't you go outside?? Man, it's 75 degrees here...so nice!!!"

2. The coffee shop in the student center. They're overpriced, but more convenient than the cheaper coffee in the convenience store. Also, the convenience store coffee tastes better.

Most importantly, though, the coffee shop does not serve enough coffee. In case any of the coffee shop employees are reading this, I will address this to them: I understand that some wasteful people spill a bit out if you fill the cup to the brim and they want to add milk. Fine. They're not, however, going to spill out 1/3 of the cup, so please don't serve me 2/3 of a cup of coffee.

I got clever, though. I started asking for black coffee. Now I get 3/4 of a cup.

3. Undergrads who don't listen and don't follow directions. 'Nuff said.

Gedanken Experiment - Pack Dynamics

I'm trying to decide how to start this post.

version 1:
I've always found group psychology interesting... not in the namby-pamby sense that real shrinks would be interested in, but in the dynamical sense. If you can model a group's behavior, can you predict the future state of individuals based on the current state of the group? Is the relationship periodic? Are there strange attractors that induce a subtle periodicity to apparently chaotic motion?

version 2:
It's no secret that I generally hate people. Once I've met them, we get along swimmingly, but most people strike me as self-centered, unobservant, and predictable. It's not that I think I'm any better, it's just that I'm aware of what people are like.

So last year, for a class project, I did a quick and dirty numerical analysis of a group model to answer the question: What happens when a Cyclist rides his bike into a Marching Band? This wasn't, by any means, a hypothetical. During 'cross practice, the band would always walk right across our course without paying any attention to the sprinting cyclists. One week, Charlie rode right through 'em, and I drafted off him. I had experienced it first-hand, but could I demonstrate that a group of people behave like a fluid?

Now, the last thing I want to do is use math. Ever. Both Navier and Stokes can go to hell for this little gem. They may be more elegant, they are certainly more computationally efficient, but differential equations just don't seem to have any place in my misantropic experiment.

Instead, let each individual live by simple rules. Let them be aware of each other (or, for fun, limit that awareness). Delay their reaction time. Make them decide poorly. You know, make the problem realistic.

One example would be a two lane interstate. The speed limit is 65... it should take everyone an average of 60 minutes to go 65 miles. But Jenksy wants to go 80, and Mark's poor car can't get above 50. Ideally, they will both travel at their desired speeds, never interfering with one another. If Mark, for some reason, is in the left lane, he'll recognize Jenks' approach and get out of the way before Jenks has to brake.

But what if there's a truck blocking Mark's merge? What if some drivers recognize relative speed with less acuity than others? What if we introduce cell-phones? Alcohol?

The possibilities for stupid drivers trying to mess with our universe are boundless.

Let's go more 2-D. How about a supermarket? Everyone has the same vehicle. However, there are so many different goals, different speeds, different levels of awareness, etc, etc. We could probably model the behavior of a group of shoppers, proving that grocery shopping is unnecessarily frustrating.

I think the most difficult version of this idea to set up and code would be a peleton. Ask any racer, these things are dense, ever-changing swarms of cyclists. They all have the same goal, they all have the same capabilities (more or less)... pretty much the only thing separating one from another is how willing one is to take risks. There are a few simple rules that could govern a peleton... no half-wheeling, holding the line, limited time in the wind. Beyond that, though, this would be a fantastically chaotic, indeterminate system.

My hypotheses are as follows:

1. The Highway experiment has been done before, and better, and there are entire scientific journals dedicated to just such modeling.
   
2. The Supermarket experiment would be quite chaotic, but the overall behavior of a simple model would look very much like molasses being stirred.
3. The model would fail (ie, two or more riders would get too close and crash) almost immediately, and no matter what simplifications I tried to introduce, the simulation would never even come close to real-life behavior.

If you're wondering, last year's experiment, in which I modeled the Marching Band as a fluid, had a very profound conclusion: They're as dumb as air.

Crazy Japanese Robots

My prediction: World War 3 will involve some combination of conventional weapons, guerilla warfare, and Crazy Japanese Robot soldiers.

exhibit a: the Stair Walker


exhibit b: Asimo, the running robot


and the mack daddy of them all, exhibit c: Giant Robot Exoskeleton


Not to worry, though... we Americans have our own answer to the various Messrs. Roboto

First Aid Class

As an officer of the Rutgers University Cycling Team, I was required to attend a First Aid course. I was pretty pissed about it, and there was even a blog post brewing in my mind all day. This course would be a waste of my time, there are EMTs and ambulances at every race, every guideline was completely intuitive, and goddamnit there are better things I could be doing.

FarmerAndy and I showed up and proceeded to zone out. The instructors gave us gauze to practice dressing wounds; we separated the gauze into individual strands to kill time. The instructors showed us Red Cross videos; we made sarcastic comments about them, mostly whispered.

It was just as boring as we expected. Until some kid walked into a wall.

That's right, some poor bastard excused himself to go to the bathroom, walked towards to the door, lost consciousness, and slammed face-first into a wall.

It was awesome.

It probably doesn't speak well of the rest of the class, semi-trained first aid people that we were, how we just stared at him like he'd just given birth. We wondered if it was a stunt, trying to get our attention by reproducing the "medical emergency" we'd just been talking about... we stopped wondering when the paramedics came.

I'm pretty sure this isn't irony, 'cause English majors are always talking about how the term irony is so often misused (cue the comment from NTW). There's probably some more appropriate term in a liberal artist's lexicon. Perhaps someone can enlighten me?

There is one term that clearly fits this situation. Schadenfreude. I was amused by what happened, and I'm not ashamed!