Heathpack 

Gnarly. 15% kicks my butt.

La Jolla is some pretty swank territory, glad you found some good riding!

2manybikes

What finally happened to the fire?

Heathpack 

93% contained. I'm guessing they'll wrap it up tomorrow.

Lots of beloved cycling routes burned. Those areas will be ugly for awhile. Three of the major mt bike/hiking trails in town are closed. People are saying they could be closed for 5 years for purposes of revegetation. Coach wants no riding those roads for a month at least- too much ash & fine particulate matter in the air.

But it is still only 18 houses burned and one fatality. It blows my mind completely how the firefighters were able to keep that fire out of town. Everything was working against them- the heat, the drought and the winds. But they did it. Monumental task, getting that done. I am completely impressed. Sometimes the magnitude of these things is a little lost on you when you just watch the news. But when you know the area and can see the fire, you just realize how huge it is.

My total respect to those firefighters.

jtaylor996

I'm now officially on vacation! I'm only like 90 minutes out of town, but I'm digging it. I haven't been on a vacation since christmas 2014!

Not sure if I'll ride tomorrow or sunday, but I'll be riding out here for sure

Dan333SP

One of today's views-

datlas 

I don't see it on "The Col Collective." BTW I highly recommend TCC.

2manybikes

It is amazing what the firefighters accomplished. Wow.

BillyD

Go for it!


Awesome, Dan!


Indeed.

Herbie53

skipped my Saturday morning group ride for puppy school.

#priorities

rpenmanparker 

So soon? I thought that was a 6 month old puppy thing. Unless we are talking about the brown and yellow basics.

rpenmanparker 

Some more news on the never-ending weight (body, not bike) saga. Some combination of the viral infection I had for about a month, stopping the testosterone injections, two hours a day of hiking at Lake Tahoe, and portion control has me at 165.5 lb now, down from a high of about 174 lb. To say I am pleased is an understatement. Over my entire life I have not lost weight easily. Pretty soon I may shrink back to where I can stop fretting about being too heavy to ride 999g tubulars. I'm not saying I haven't been riding them, just that I do think about maybe being a little porky for them.

But here is an aspect of my situation you might be interested in. For years I have been trying to identify what food group was the villain and shun it. You know, low carb, low fat, low carb, low fat.... About the time the sort-of-diet started I decided, screw it, just eat everything but practice stringent portion control. Not quantitatively. I am not weighing and measuring my food or counting calories. No, just qualitative. If I am in a restaurant and order a 1/2 lb burger with fries, a size that is so common now and yet so totally unnecessary, I will cut it in half when it arrives at the table, maybe closer to 2/3:1/3 and just eat the larger side. I will eat maybe 10 of the fries and leave the other 30. Used to be, I would have ordered a salad with meat on it. Those are stupid big now too, but I would have eaten it all. It may be counter-intuitive, but by ordering what I would prefer to have, I can happily only eat half of it.

Thing is, with the eat everything (types of food, not amount of food) plan, I don't feel deprived when I push the plate way. And despite being raised by members of the "Great Depression" generation, I have learned to let that extra food go to the trash can without a care. Taking it home would just be counter-productive to the diet.

Most nights I am having a small dessert like light ice cream with chocolate syrup or a couple of cookies. Just like the eat everything aspect of the "diet", knowing the dessert is coming encourages me to push away that honking piece of burger without a second thought.

Truth is, I really can't explain what is going on, but for now it is working. Thank you for your support.

Bah Humbug

Hmm. My thing that's helped me finally lose some weight? Cast iron skillet. Effed if I know why, but there you have it. Same food, just cooked on a different surface. Maybe I was anemic or something.

WhyFi

Question for the wheel builders:

I'm entertaining the thought of a PTap wheel build based on the GS hub, which only comes in the 24h, straight pull variety (which I think limits it to 2x lacing, but I could be wrong). That hub with a Zipp 202 rim has "no weight restrictions" (though internally they that 350 lbs is realistic). How much do you think that robustness would be impacted by pairing it with an H+ Archetype (which would match my current wheels) instead of the 202? Is it the integrity of the rim itself? Is it the higher tensions possible with the CF rim? Are straight pulls just imbued with magic that makes them stronger?

WhyFi

Did you cook just as much before the skillet?

Even though I have the majority of my cast iron needs covered (I really could use a single burner grill pan), I still pause to look longingly at the some of the Le Creuset pieces/colors that don't have. It's a problem.

rpenmanparker 

I don't have answers to all your questions, but I can address some. The straight pull spokes don't have the elbow which is a weak point on the spoke. It is a stress riser and a spot where back-and-forth bending can take place. As you well know, that can easily lead to fatigue cracking. Also the elbow is not totally immobile in the spoke hole, which is why washers used to be common at that point. The possibility of motion of the elbow in the spoke hole is another likely cause of failure there.

It is not that 24 hole hubs are "limited" to 2X lacing, but rather that 2X lacing is the ideal design for that hub. You want the spokes to be tangent to the hub flange so that they "pull" the rim around the circle most effectively. The number of the lacing that gives that arrangement decreases with spoke count and flange diameter. For most common hubs these days, 24 holes means that 2X is best.

Finally higher spoke tensions can be helpful for wheel durability when heavy gauge spokes are being used or when the ratio of DS to NDS tensions is very high. The higher tensions will give more spoke stretch with the higher gauge spokes and/or the NDS spokes which have only a fraction of the DS tension. That higher level of stretch provides a safety margin for the spokes against going slack when unloaded due to road irregularities or even just the cyclical changes in stress as the wheel rotates. BUT with very light gauge spokes like Lasers, Revolutions, CX-Rays, etc., higher tensions really aren't necessary and, in fact, can take the spokes up closer to their breaking strength than is really desirable. My philosophy is to protect your rims with lower tensions and use lighter spokes to still give the higher level of stretch. When I say lower tension, I mean 120-130 kgF instead of higher than that.

I don't know the H+ Archetype rim and can't speak about it.

WhyFi

Thanks much for that.

I assume that you mean 120-130 on the DS?

The H+ is an alloy rim, along the lines of a HED C2 rim - 23mm wide, 25mm deep. If I were to do it, I'd be using CX-Rays (DS and NDS).

I guess that my main concern is the bombPROOFness. I'm as fat as 205 when spring rolls around and you could say that I slam dance on the peddles.

BillyD

Commendable. Congratulations, keep up the good work! You're tackling the hardest part, the discipline. Most people have trouble with the discipline - the willpower, the self-control, whatever you want to call it. In my opinion that's what all volume dieting boils down to - people eat too much. Portion reduction is the main way to do it. And in time your body will adjust to smaller portions by reducing your appetite, and you'll find it's uncomfortable to eat too much. That makes the discipline considerably easier.

The only other thing I would address is the fried foods. Even a partial portion of french fries is harmful if fried foods are a routine part of your diet. The problem lies in the oil. Not only is it almost surely not the best oil, or the freshest oil, but oil used to fry at high heat changes the molecular structure of the oil, creating unnatural compounds that are not good for you. So you want to minimize fried foods as much as possible, even though so many things taste so good fried. Play at your own risk is what I tell folks.

No I'm not a nutritionist, but Mrs. BD is . . . . and I have stayed at a Holiday Inn earlier this year.

rpenmanparker 

Yes, on the DS. A fraction of that on the NDS determined by the relative bracing angles on the two sides.

I think you have a reasonable plan, and it should hold up well. But if you need more stiffness with those low spoke count rims, use a higher gauge spoke on the DS. Keep the CX-Rays on the NDS. If you use a 14 gauge equivalent aero spoke on the DS and the CX-Rays on the NDS, the stretch on the two sides will be almost identical and sufficient to ward off premature fatigue of the spokes.

But why not go up to higher spoke count? The H+ rim comes in higher counts. Doesn't the PTap hub as well?

rpenmanparker 

Thanks. I know you are right.

Bah Humbug

Yup. It's either weighed meat or counted eggs. Cheap cast iron from HEB, too, none of your bougie Le Creuset.

WhyFi

It's the only configuration available for the hub.

Heathpack 

40 mile noodling ride with a friend, and done by 8am. Nice morning.

Heathpack 

Boy Wonder just clinched the gold at Junior Track Nationals! In the Omnium. Sixteen years old. Not his first National Championship but the first since I've known him. He's had a great year- enough points to upgrade to cat 2 on the road, great season MTB racing with his HS team, and much success on the track (he even won a P/1/2 race).

Totally happy for him, he's a good kid!

WhyFi

Ha - you need to divert some of your knife budget towards your cookware budget.

About half of my LC pieces were gifts. If I had to start from scratch, I wouldn't pay the LC premium for the skillet, I'd go raw/seasoned CI, but for things like a dutch oven or braiser, I'd certainly go enameled.

thin_concrete

Gorgeous.

Separately, I TT'd this morning and shaved almost 2 minutes off my initial time. I just don't do a good enough job of anticipating shifts or just shifting in general. I found myself in the big front ring on certain climbs and then remembered to shift down and shift up on the cassette. Total ineficciency. Any tips for getting better at timing shifts instead of just paying attention?

I have a 25 mile road race next Sunday and am totally petrified because shifting will be a high priority.