Let’s just say it. Breaking someone else’s stuff isn’t cool, even if they had broken it before.
Speaking of broken stuff my copy of Modern Warfare 2 broke. Cracked right down the center. I know 3 people this has happened too. It got me wondering why. So I went through all my games and noticed that the new packaging they use is eco friendly. You know, less plastic then the old ones. But because of it the little clip that holds the games in sucks! So I went through and moved all my new games into old boxes. Sometimes eco friendly isn’t the best option.
Harold: Dave, can I pose a somewhat abstract, purely hypothetical question?
Dave: Sure.
Harold: If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?
Dave: Wow, I don’t know. Am I the richest man in the world?
Harold: No, you’re you.
Dave: Do I have a superpower?
Harold: No, You’re *you*.
Dave: I know I’m me, but do I have superpower?
Harold: No, why would you have a superpower?
Dave: I don’t know, you said it was hypothetical.
Harold: Fine, yes, you’re really good at math.
Dave: That’s not a power, that’s a skill.
Harold: Okay, you’re good at math and you’re invisible. And you know you’re gonna die.
Dave: Okay, okay. That’s easy, I’d go to space camp.
Harold: Space camp?
Dave: Yeah, it’s in Alabama. It’s where kids go to learn how to become astronauts. I’ve always wanted to go since I was nine.
Harold: You’re invisible and you’d go to space camp?
Dave: I didn’t pick invisible, you picked invisible.
Harold: Aren’t you too old to go to space camp?
Dave: You’re *never* too old to go to space camp, dude.
To be honest I never wanted to go to space camp as a kid. But everyone has that random thing they want to do, like space camp. Say, climbing Mount Everest, or visiting every lighthouse in the country. I assume even birds have dreams. Just remember not everything can live up to your expectations. But you won’t know until you try. So it’s time to go do those things. Cheerio!
Lately I’ve been collecting hobbies. Play guitar in a girl band, PHP, french, bread artistry, piano, soccer, write a book, of course cycling. Do you think my list is diverse/long enough? Yeah I didn’t think so either. So I thought, hey motion graphics are super cool, I should know how to do that.
Luckily we seem to already own every computer program known to men, albeit a few years old on some. I decided to learn Apple’s program Motion first. Here is my proof of concept. I’m now beginning work on a full proper video. This took a couple of hours, so I imagine it will be a couple of weeks before I have the next video complete.
I would embed the file in this article but apparently wordpress knows better then I do so they trim my html down. Or I could to pay to upgrade or use one of their approved video websites. Yeah, vimeo isn’t approved. So, to see my proof of concept you can go here –> Success – Motion Graphics
Gonna go ride up to the gate on my single speed now. Have a safe holiday for you who also have it off. A la prochaine!
I found a comic strip I enjoyed last year. It had these great images with bright colors, but none of the comics were very funny. I loved it. The idea of making a comic that wasn’t always trying to make you laugh. I’ve only done a few but this is my bird series. Ah the life of a blue bird.
Hello again! It’s been a while, well actually a year. Life moves so fast. Well I am wanting to get back into actually writing. There are quite a few things I’ve been writing in a notebook and I figure this is as good a place as any to put them.
So here’s what you will start seeing, a huge jumbled mess. Yep, that’s what you will see. I know, they say never write a blog that doesn’t stick to a specific purpose, but at this moment in life I’m going to break that rule.
Book Scenes – I would love to write a book, so you will see a lot of scenes from different books, because I can’t even stick to one book, I’m always having different scenes pop into my head so you’ll be getting a bunch of different ones. I like to think that some day there will be enough of one books scenes that I’ll just have to write the in between spots. We’ll see. Maybe that’s a horrible way to write a book, but it’s how my brain is working.
Articles – You will also see multiple articles. I would also love to write for a magazine. But once again I’m all over the place. So there will be themes ranging from Should we Still Have Health Care, to How do you Pick a Check Out Line, and of course cycling specific, like What Happened to the American Glove Manufactures. I know that is an absolute jumbled mess as I mentioned, but I think it will help me clear out my head.
So a Reintroduction of me by the Numbers
I’ve lived in Utah for 10 years, I’ve been married for 5 of those, owned my 12,00 sq ft home for 3 years, and have 0 children by choice. I have had 5 jobs since moving to Utah Valley 3 years ago. I attended 4 universities before finally sticking to one school long enough to graduate in Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations. There are 3 of us living in my home, myself, husband, and bro-in-law. Between the 3 of us we have started 5 companies, and stuck to 2, not to mentioned the dozens we plan to still try out. I personally am about to attempt number 2. I have worked in the bicycle industry for almost 2 years, which is the best industry by the way, and own 4 1/2 bikes (half because I share a bmx with my hubby, I just haven’t gotten my own yet). All together we have 9. If there is 1 thing in life I truly believe it’s that life is always getting better.
If you’re in Utah Valley come join up with Timpanogos Cyclery for some snowshoeing. (May I just note, I do not work for Timp, but I do love finding an activity with other cyclists in the winter) They are Thursday at 6. If you’re not in the valley but would like to get out for a good romp in the snow consider this instead.
Yesterday I was biking home from school. It was cold so I was to lazy to plug in my light, and because it was so cold I have to wear glasses in order to keep my eyes open. Of course I don’t own any clear glasses and the ones I have change color which is usually great but when it is cold they go a rather dark blue. You can probably see what I’m leading up to, dark glasses, no light and lets throw in a big chunk of ashpalt. I never saw it coming and there was no way I was could roll over it even if I had.
Instead I flipped over my handlebars at 18 mph, it’s okay though I took the fall with my body not the bike. Cracked my helmet and jammed my finger real good other then that bumps and brusies on most of my body but no blood and no breaks so I’m pretty happy with it.
It was my first fall on a road bike, and you know what they say, you can’t get better at falling without falling. So heres to learning.
So I was emailing back and forth with Doug at Santa Cruz. He is their mechanic and has been helping the guys with their new bikes at their rider camp (which is over now). Peaty, Josh Bryceland and Greg Minnar where there to test out their new rides. Doug said “The riders are very happy with their new bikes!”. Yep, very happy. And I made their custom rings on their grips (well no I didn’t make them, Aaron did, I just got them all set up) so next time you see a band new pic look at their grips.
You can read more about their new bikes and the rider camp on Santa Cruz’s website.
So you’ve made it this far, you know 1. that you love pump, 2. that you love tracks, and 3. when you put one and two put together it fits in your backyard.
As you begin the design stage consider what kind of bike you will be riding on the pump track. As you can see from the diagram below you don’t want to be stuck with rollers that are too big or too small for your bike.
*While the Penny Farthing does have the highest bottom bracket (because it has not bottom bracket) it is not recommended for pump tracks
Let’s break down our terminology before we continue. A bump is to small to use in a pump track, it just slows you down. Think of speed bumps, or as James May calls them “sleeping policemen”. Then there is the hump, also known as the roller. This is the most useful of the three, which you will use the majority of the time. A hump helps you gain speed while you “pump” off of it. Lastly is the jump, which is like a roller/hump but with a lip on the end of it. Observe the diagram below detailing the differences.
Still confused when you should use each of the three. Check out this diagram.
Now that that is squared away pull our you pencil and start drawing is hump and jumps (no bumps) that will help make your track faster, (or if you like start digging and if it doesn’t work move the dirt to the next hump attempt). A well designed track can be ridden without pedaling after the initial start. Here is what we did to gain the most speed from our track.
We determined that three rollers across the long straight would help us gain the majority of our speed with just a couple of extra humps through out to keep speed. The most important thing to consider when implementing a hump is the speed loss to awesomeness ratio.
As you can see the perfect speed loss to awesomeness ratio is 7.
Building the Dream
Your track is all designed now it is time to implement. Now lets lay down some ground rules before you start digging.
Rule #1 – Always add more dirt. Not sure if you hump is good enough? Add more dirt, just remember your speed loss to awesomeness ratio when deciding where to put the dirt. I know what you are thinking, but what if my yard is flat? I’ve got you covered.
Rule #2 – Make sure your significant other approves of your pump track plans. If they don’t wait until they are gone, rather to work or visiting family to implement your brilliant plan. Trust me they will love it once it’s in.
Tomorrow we will cover building and saftey on your pump track in Pt. 3. Until then enjoy this.
I know what your thinking. Clean slate at best. What you really want is this.
Awesome pump track backyard
Lets determine if you heart is in the right place to have a pump track. Answer these questions.
1. Do you come home longing to get on the bike, but heart sick because you know it will be dark by the time you get to the mountains?
2. When you are sitting at work do you dream about having your park/bmx bike with you so you could preform tricks in back… by the dumpster… where it’s beautiful?
And finally
3. Do you look out your kitchen window and feel disgusted when you see garden gnomes looking back at you?
If you answered yes to any or all of these questions it is time to move on to the the first stage on planning. If you answered no then enjoy this instead:
Planning to Pump
The first thing to consider when building a pump track is space. Count off your backyard. Is it at least 50 paces? If not you are going to have a hard time with the design. But even small or misshapen backyards can make amazing pump tracks. Consider ours:
It is easy to see that a normal squarish shaped track will not fit in this spot. But after many toiless hours and lines drawn on the ground we happened upon this shape.
In our case the “tilted A connecting the ends to the line in the middle” was the only plausible shape. Once you have the basic shape it is time to move to the next phase, adding pump to your track.
Now this is only a little bit late…. Okay so it is a lot bit late but finally you can see some awesome pics from my first Cyclocross race. So let me tell you about it because I was pretty tickled with my results and how very fun it was. Jon, I, and my nephew Will came to watch the race but we showed up late so we missed all of our buddies racing in the C class. They all did good, only one threw up afterwards (two is you count Brad who also raced the 11-14 class and hurdled mid way). So naturally I was considering it.
And they're off
After the sand then up the hill
As you know I wanted to race, but now that it was staring me straight in the face I was feeling a little nervous. So after having a huddle everyone convinced me. Okay. Over to sign up I went, of course by this time the race was only 10 minutes away so I had to run to the car and change (which by the way my windows are not tinted and I’m parked on the side of the street, so yeah I totally changed where anyone could see). The nice thing about racing in 10 minutes is I didn’t have long to fret about it. Thankfully I had talked to Ethan before and he had already prepped a bike for me, just in case.
Passing on the left
Ignore the man with the money
So to the starting line I went. There were seven of us. Not to mention the wave in front of us and behind us. For half of us this was our first race. Thankfully a couple of girls had pre-ridden the course so they told me about the hairy spots… and off we went. I went off the line in third and was very proud that I never fell behind that. When we hit the hurdles I jumped off my bike, picked it up and passed the girl in front of me. Yep that’s right I passed her running up a hill in between hurdles with a bike on my shoulder, I might be just a tad bit proud of that. Anyway by the time we finished the first lap I was in first. But of course I went down in some sand and decided hey I have forty seconds to blow I’ll just pedal aimlessly, blow through energy and knock my chain off before I start back up. After all I didn’t want to win to easy…. Back in third place I decided that I had to win this. You can’t be in first lose it and not win. Ah that would be horrible so I was off again.
And she's down
Forget the sand, fix the chain
Surprisingly I passed everyone on the climbs, first over the hurdles, the others all on a long steep climb on road at the end of the lap. As I started up this last hill, I was still in second but I had passed another girl on this same hill the last time round so here I was hoping to do it again. At first it didn’t feel like I was gaining on her at all but finally a little over half way up I passed her. Then it came time to hammer down. I couldn’t tell how far she was behind me so I gave it everything I could and it completely wiped me out. When I passed that finish line (in first) I thought I was going to fall over. Yep two little laps completely wiped me out. I understood what McCarl was saying about throwing up now. Blah but I kept my stomach.
Up the hill again *note my nephew cheering me on
Jump jump jump
So the moral of the story is, next year I’m going to have to ride B class and that kind of terrifies me because they are a lot better then I am. Still it’s nice to have a good challenge, one that I plan to win. Look out next winter Hilly’s got 10 months to train. Ride on.
If this was the Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen you would see Mark Cavendish fly by as I start to celebrate to win
