I marshalled the Century yesterday. It was a ton of fun, but really ******** hard on a fixed gear! My knees are shot to sh*t. Many people were confused by my lack of multiple gears.

As a marshall, i had to assist any riders I came across who were having problems. I changed three flats, adjusted some clipless anchors, attended to two injuries, and gave a ton of directions.

My personal highlights were doing laps at the Kissena velodrome and riding up to the world's fair disc tower things.

Did any of y'all go? Hope you had a good time. I know I did, though I'm glad I won't be doing another one for at least a year.

the kissena velodrome was closed (locked up) when we got there. totally sucked - i was really looking forward to that part. the rest of it was fun though, except my left knee is shot today and i'm walking around like an old man.

highlights for me were riding in a tight pack for about 10 miles doing between 26-28mph. a few of us broke off and made a paceline, which was a lot of fun too.

It was my first century, so I didn't ride it fixed, but it was a thrill to see all the cool bikes people ride in this city. Sure, there were plenty of carbon fiber whats-its and titanium whosibobs, but man, so many cool classic steel lightweights. The weather was perfect, the route spectacular. It was an awesome day!

yeah, yesterday was certainly legendary weather for my first fixed century. i think i counted 5 fixies altogether, including mine, all track. and i was the only one with a brake! must be why my knees aren't so completely shot...

it did feel funny (but comfortable) in grape smugglers and a cycling jersey (love them pockets) - 3 other dudes hauled messenger bags the whole way.

anyway, props to all that finished, fixed or otherwise.

a completely useless fact of intense nerdage:

i calculated that with my gearing, 48*18 = 73.6 gear inches, and the distance, 108 miles (i think that's what they told us), i turned my pedals over 154.956.5 times.

My opportunity to ride brakeless arose in the Bronx when my brake shifted (!) and began to rub my tire and I had to take the pad off. It was a fun and scary 20 miles before I got it taken care of.

48x16 century was rough on the knees, but I feel like I had a better time than the carbon-fiber set, who wouldn't talk to me anyways. Thpppt.

Btw, dgs, what make of bike have you got? I think I noticed you as a fix-riding marshall; there can't have been that many...

I was riding a Bianchi, although you couldn't tell because it's painted matte black with no logos. The gold chain and top tube protector would have been a dead giveaway. I was wearing a blue cycling cap, "grape smugglers," a wife beater, and the requisite orange marshall vest. if it wasn't me, it may have been a guy a know (frank) who was also a marshall and was riding a battleship grey Bianchi pista.

I saw a dude riding a white fixie (I forget what kind) with AWESOME tires. Michelin Giro, I think he said. They were white sidewalls, black where the tire meets the road, and a thick green stripe in between the white and black. AWESOME! Was that any of you?

How did you get this number?

whoops - i seem to have indulged in some 'fuzzy' math. this should set the record straight:

one mile = 63,360 inches

108 miles = 6,842,880 inches

divide 6,842,880 by 73.6 (gear inches), and you get roughly 92,974.

feel free to correct if i've screwed it up again...

btw, i was on the yellow fixie with bullhorns and a brake - did i see any of you?

next divide by pi, and you get 30,252 revolutions of your crank arms. that's still 60,504 flexes of each knee! nothing to sneeze at, my friend...

Oooops. gear inches is not the distance traveled in one pedal rotation. It's the equivalent wheel diameter of a penny farthing (high-wheeler). You want to multiply gear-inches * pi to get development. That is the distance traveled in one pedal rotation. So:

73.6 * 3.14159 = 231.221 inches development
6,842,880 / 231.221 = 29594.544 pedal rotations

EDIT: cicadashell beat me to it .... so: what he said.

I saw that guy too. It was a waterford -- absolutely drop dead gorgeous.

i intended to ride the 35 route (without any training), but somehow ended up on the 55 mi route...whoops. it was a long haul,but the beautiful weather made up for it. btw, thanks for the calculation there...looks like i did half the rotations, no wonder my knees hate me!

there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to ride with the traffic, kinda scary. i helped out two women who crashed into other riders.

that waterford...did it have red lettering? i have suspicions on who it was...it is a very beautiful piece of machinery.