You know how I feel about the cult of personality, that pseudo-scientific urge to label us all by ‘type’ and put us into the appropriate pigeon-hole. By this we ‘understand’ ourselves and can ‘perfect’ our lives. Or so the story goes. It’s like all of those other mildly convincing labels – like Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Scorpio, Virgo, and so on. It never tells the whole story, does it. Instead it promotes labelling, something that humans do particulary well.
OK, this rant is about teams and terminology and personality. We like to think we need ‘teamplayers’ in our business, and in our lives in general. They sound like assets, don’t they? People who are cohesive, get along, absorb instructions and lead others in the designated direction. They follow the rules, don’t make trouble and work as one with the group to generate the desired result. All goodness, surely?
Mind you, to most of us our vision of a team is based around sporting analogies, tinged with military terminology like tactics and strategy. So we tend to see our manager as a coach, our team leader as a captain and the team working in different positions on the field but playing to the same rules and game plan. Which is all sweet and lovely within a context of strictly enforced rules, clearly delineated roles and an end result (ie winning games, winning the season finale etc) that’s a self-reinforcing common vision.
If we are to critique this just a little, what exactly do we have in common here with modern work practices? Perhaps it was a stronger analogy in the 20th Century’s time-and-motion-manufacturing and typing-pool-style of regimented labor, but does it hold true in a world of increasing role diversity and the blurring of who-does-what-when. Do you see yourself in such a team? I don’t. I work in a geographically dispersed, virtual team, do everything myself (from typing to reporting to creating graphics; scheduling my time, prioritising as I see fit) as and when needed. I set my own hours around a work and life balance and rarely find myself boxed into anything like regimentation. It’s more fluid, organic and diverse, and very flexible.
Sure, I’m just me, just one example. But the shift in work practices – from full time to more part-time work; from office or factory to home-based work; from clearly delineated single-task-based work to multi-tasking, is as real as the shift to a service-based economy. Not everyone works likes this but a heck of a lot more do today than yesterday.
So what does this mean for teams? To some, nothing at all. They cling to old ideas with new labels. They divide people up by ‘personality type’ and advise that you need one of these and two of those and lots of these worker bees to make it hum. Which is great if you are a bee, and ant or maybe a wasp. But what do insects know about teamwork outside of their genetic endowment? What about insects, sorry people who need to generate new ideas to improve the business and match – or beat – the competition? We don’t want to make the same stuff the same way over and over again, do we? Well not if we are making incandescent bulbs in a world that is switching to energy-saving LEDs and fluoros.
In this new 21st Century world we need flexible, adaptable people who think and act on the run. They are assets to the team as well, in fact they are the new team. And if they uncover problems and devise and implement solutions within the overall team context and direction then they are invaluable. So we don’t want mere followers, we want action-thinkers who network with their peers. We don’t want them to buck the system for no reason, and we need a way to accommodate valid dissent, too. We don’t want managers to have to micro-manage, either. So it’s not just the team player per se but the team organisation that needs to allow free thought, innovation and a way to generate and propagate new ideas, quickly. In fact in a lean organisation, and I mean Lean in a particularly business-oriented way, the team player will contribute incremental improvement to process, procedure and organisational design quite naturally. So they are truly a thinking, doing, trying-out-new-ideas kind of beast. Sure, not all of the team members will shine to the same degree, or generate the same caliber or type of idea; but they will support each other and provide an environment of contribution by which the team overall prospers.
So it’s a cohesive environment of contribution that is important, coupled with flexible, empowered individuals. Perhaps thinking about ‘personality types’ and trying to build teams around a shopping list of personalities is too blinkered in this new world. Maybe we need to expect everyone to do a bit of everything, but in their individual way.
OK, I’m being a bit difficult here but there’s actually little to be said for stretching and massage, at least in the context of fit, well adjusted bodies playing sport. Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor of anything, medical or otherwise, but I ride and I have an opinion based on both practice and research. Let’s start with stretching.
Unless you have a lack of flexibility, relative to the range of motion required, what are you trying to achieve by stretching? A warm-up? Why not just ride easily and gradually bring yourself up to speed? In this way you warm up exactly the muscles you need to engage in the activity. Why indeed would you stretch cold muscles and tendons, and thus risk injury? Or perhaps you want to cool down. It seems odd that an activity that is used to ‘warm-up’ is also used to cool down. In fact why not just ride slower and gradually bring yourself to a cooler state?
If you do have a lack of flexibility then sure, work on what the problem may be with targeted stretches. get advice from a physio on exactly what to do and help to avoid injury.
Which brings me to massage. OK, the pros do it so it must be good. Well maybe it is but where’s the evidence? Go on, take a look at the literature. It certainly doesn’t seem to hurt, but at best it simply feels good and may act to help convince you that it is good; and thus convinced you may ride better next time. So it’s in the mind, not the body. And plenty of riders do swear that they feel better after a massage, so it works for them. But physiologically the effects are so minimal as to be… non-existent. Or not measurable. When you think about it, why would a trained athlete not have an efficient circulatory system? Why would toxins and other waste-products from exercise not be pumped away swiftly from major working muscles like those in the legs? Why would waste linger longer in an athlete, somehow pooling in key areas of great vascular development? Now a non-athlete with fluid retention or some other circulatory problem I could understand, but a highly-trained sports person? I’m open to the evidence, I just haven’t seen any that convinces.
OK, I’m being a bit difficult here but there’s actually little to be said for stretching and massage, at least in the context of fit, well adjusted bodies playing sport. Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor of anything, medical or otherwise, but I ride and I have an opinion based on both practice and research. Let’s start with stretching.
Unless you have a lack of flexibility, relative to the range of motion required, what are you trying to achieve by stretching? A warm-up? Why not just ride easily and gradually bring yourself up to speed? In this way you warm up exactly the muscles you need to engage in the activity. Why indeed would you stretch cold muscles and tendons, and thus risk injury? Or perhaps you want to cool down. It seems odd that an activity that is used to ‘warm-up’ is also used to cool down. In fact why not just ride slower and gradually bring yourself to a cooler state?
If you do have a lack of flexibility then sure, work on what the problem may be with targeted stretches. get advice from a physio on exactly what to do and help to avoid injury.
Which brings me to massage. OK, the pros do it so it must be good. Well maybe it is but where’s the evidence? Go on, take a look at the literature. It certainly doesn’t seem to hurt, but at best it simply feels good and may act to help convince you that it is good; and thus convinced you may ride better next time. So it’s in the mind, not the body. And plenty of riders do swear that they feel better after a massage, so it works for them. But physiologically the effects are so minimal as to be… non-existent. Or not measurable. When you think about it, why would a trained athlete not have an efficient circulatory system? Why would toxins and other waste-products from exercise not be pumped away swiftly from major working muscles like those in the legs? Why would waste linger longer in an athlete, somehow pooling in key areas of great vascular development? Now a non-athlete with fluid retention or some other circulatory problem I could understand, but a highly-trained sports person? I’m open to the evidence, I just haven’t seen any that convinces.
It’s nowhere near July but it’s already started: the drug-bustin’ scandalisin’ name-dropping that suggests that this is going to be yet another speculation-fest.
From CN: In an interview with Spanish newspaper Marca, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said he could make no promises over the participation of defending champion Alberto Contador or Alejandro Valverde in this year’s race, after the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) recently re-opened its enquiries into Operación Puerto. “Today I cannot say that Valverde or Contador will not be in the Tour,” said Prudhomme, speaking at the Tour of Qatar in Doha. “It is still early, we are not going to exclude individual riders, but instead not invite an entire team.”
Meanwhile, over in the US, there’s more…
Rock Racing’s now former director Frankie Andreu‘s 2006 mea culpa about his involvement with doping during his time on the US Postal team made him a credible mentor to younger cyclists about the dangers of doping. And Andreu felt that his previous mistakes warranted him to speak to his group of young riders, frequently. But with the revelation that one of the riders on the team during his tenure, which Andreu confirmed is Kayle Leogrande, is under investigation by the U.S. Anti-doping Agency (USADA), Andreu could only say that he did his due diligence to prevent it.
Kayle’s beef is that his A-sample was allegedly negative, so why is USADA asking for the B-sample to be tested anyway? Why that sounds like harassment to Leogrande’s lawyers, who happen to be the Landis legal team, too. Now there’s a team with some success in these matters, eh?
It’s nowhere near July but it’s already started: the drug-bustin’ scandalisin’ name-dropping that suggests that this is going to be yet another speculation-fest.
From CN: In an interview with Spanish newspaper Marca, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said he could make no promises over the participation of defending champion Alberto Contador or Alejandro Valverde in this year’s race, after the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) recently re-opened its enquiries into Operación Puerto. “Today I cannot say that Valverde or Contador will not be in the Tour,” said Prudhomme, speaking at the Tour of Qatar in Doha. “It is still early, we are not going to exclude individual riders, but instead not invite an entire team.”
Meanwhile, over in the US, there’s more…
Rock Racing’s now former director Frankie Andreu‘s 2006 mea culpa about his involvement with doping during his time on the US Postal team made him a credible mentor to younger cyclists about the dangers of doping. And Andreu felt that his previous mistakes warranted him to speak to his group of young riders, frequently. But with the revelation that one of the riders on the team during his tenure, which Andreu confirmed is Kayle Leogrande, is under investigation by the U.S. Anti-doping Agency (USADA), Andreu could only say that he did his due diligence to prevent it.
Kayle’s beef is that his A-sample was allegedly negative, so why is USADA asking for the B-sample to be tested anyway? Why that sounds like harassment to Leogrande’s lawyers, who happen to be the Landis legal team, too. Now there’s a team with some success in these matters, eh?
Airport security at Bankstown airport was even looser than at Sydney. To get this close to a Lockheed Electra (the twin-tailed piston-engined original, not the turbo-prop L188 I just showed you) involves stepping over a similar-to-Sydney low white fence.
Here’s a nice shot of airport security at Sydney in around 1975. You can see the openly accessible Ansett supply division to the left and all that separates me – a callow youth of 17 armed with a 35mm camera – from that Ansett L188 Electra is an unimposing wooden fence. Indeed that is barely a fence at all, rather it’s an indicator of where the airside access road is, so watch out for baggage trucks! If I took off at a run I’d certainly get to the Electra, if not to the old control tower/fire station visible in the shot, before being spotted and rounded up. To the right, out of shot, is the Ansett passenger terminal, long gone now (like the Electra and Ansett itself). When you think about it , there’s not much between me and that tower, let alone the taxying 727 in the distance. Of course it’s an active airfield with a main runway between me and the 727, so I’d get squished or blow-dried by a passing 747 , but it does illustrate a lovely, relaxed feel about society in the 1970s (and earlier). It’s something sorely missing these days.
OK, I love cars and bikes. I love wheels, basically. I love the ability to travel much further, far easier than on foot. (And I love walking, too.) Trouble is, cars take up too much space, spew fumes and their drivers act like it’s a personal affront to slow down and give pedestrians and cyclists a chance. The ‘modern’ world is simply unbalanced in its love of roads, parking and ever-bigger cars and has forgotten that people actually live here, too, and want to (a) breathe (b) not be intimidated by traffic to the extent where simply crossing a road or even walking alongside one is an ordeal. At this point I publish in toto and excellent riposte by Sydney’s Lord Mayor to the numbskulls at the Aussie National Roads and Motorists Association (of which I am a long-standing and increasingly disenchanted member):
Clover Moore January 11, 2008 “THE NRMA, unsurprisingly, claims that few cyclists use the Epping Road corridor each day. The NRMA, like the big oil companies, has a vested interest to protect, and it is depressing that private car use in Sydney is still rising, with vehicle kilometres travelled increasing at twice the rate of population growth. We are past the day when we have any choice but to pursue alternatives: oil is running out and global warming is increasing at an alarming rate. Our streets are becoming impossibly congested, polluted and unpleasant to use. The health costs, in respiratory disease and obesity, to name but two, are well-documented. Many people choose cars over bikes because they can get directly to any destination. Get on a bike, and you’ll be lucky to find continuous safe passage. Cyclists are expected to levitate through impassable gaps in the network and risk their lives inches from tonnes of speeding metal on car-dominated roads. Despite this, nearly 1.5 million bicycles were sold in Australia last year, 40 per cent more bikes than cars. And this is the eighth year in a row that bikes have outsold cars.
“At last year’s C40 Large Cities conference in New York, I cycled with the mayor of Copenhagen. In the Danish capital 40 per cent of people use bikes to get to work and study. International experience shows that if you provide the facilities, people will use them – but it does not happen overnight. Our top need is for a clean, efficient, sustainable and integrated transport system that includes cycleways and mass transit to move the million-plus people who use the city daily to their destinations. Recent research by the City of Sydney indicates that Sydneysiders would be more likely to cycle if there were dedicated cycle lanes and better awareness by motorists of bicycle safety. Even under the present, less-than-ideal conditions, the Roads and Traffic Authority has reported a 45 per cent increase in bicycle traffic in the CBD in the three years to 2005. The city’s own counts show that about 500 cyclists use Oxford Street each weekday between 7am and 9am – a sixfold increase over the past decade. While there are major recreational cycleways – such as the Sydney Harbour route and the planned Alexandra Canal path – the city’s cycle strategy aims to create an effective and accessible network with major routes less than five minutes’ cycle from every residence. It also includes strategies to increase community awareness about the benefits of cycling, to provide better signage and safer, separated cycle lanes. We are encouraging end-of-trip facilities including the provision of parking, storage, change and shower facilities – which progressive firms like Lend Lease are now providing in their headquarters. On the other side of the harbour, North Sydney Council has its own proposals for getting cyclists safely to the bridge, and local governments across the metropolitan area are looking at ways of creating a cycling network that can get people to work, recreation and educational destinations.
“According to the British urbanist Charles Landry, the average US male devotes more than 1600 hours a year to his car – driving it, sitting in traffic, parking it. Adding in the time spent working to pay for it, for petrol, tolls and other charges, he calculates that same person spends over 18 per cent of his life on his car. Sydney people have surely got better things to do with that 18 per cent of their lives.”
Clover Moore is Lord Mayor of Sydney and the independent state MP for Sydney.
Well I’m no expert, per se, but here are my tips anyway! You have some options, as always, but my shortlist is:
- Shoot fast, ie capture the action with a high shutter speed
- Follow the action by panning the camera – you can then shoot fast or slow
- If you shoot slow and pan (perhaps because it’s dark, or because you want to) you’ll blur the background and other parts that are moving relative to your pan, which can be nice
- If you can’t shoot at infinity, pre-focus on something obvious and hit the go button when the object reaches that object
- Anticipate the unwanted, like other moving objects, and get clear sightlines
- Use the best focal length for your purpose, bearing in mind that the longer the focal length the harder it will be to ‘freeze’ the action
- As always, frame the object well and get as close as you can.
It’s not always easy but these simple tips will make your images more interesting and viewable. Trust me, just this once 
Well I’m no expert, per se, but here are my tips anyway! You have some options, as always, but my shortlist is:
- Shoot fast, ie capture the action with a high shutter speed
- Follow the action by panning the camera – you can then shoot fast or slow
- If you shoot slow and pan (perhaps because it’s dark, or because you want to) you’ll blur the background and other parts that are moving relative to your pan, which can be nice
- If you can’t shoot at infinity, pre-focus on something obvious and hit the go button when the object reaches that object
- Anticipate the unwanted, like other moving objects, and get clear sightlines
- Use the best focal length for your purpose, bearing in mind that the longer the focal length the harder it will be to ‘freeze’ the action
- As always, frame the object well and get as close as you can.
It’s not always easy but these simple tips will make your images more interesting and viewable. Trust me, just this once
Well this is interesting…. imagine a rider who is ‘suffering’ depression, perhaps because they are not winning? OK, too obvious. Perhaps they really are clinically depressed. In the near future they may well be prescribed EPO to lift their spirits… I’m feeling depressed just thinking about it!
From Physorg.com: A search for novel treatment strategies in coping with depression has revealed that erythropoietin, or Epo, a hormone naturally produced by the kidneys to stimulate the formation of red blood cells, affects cognitive and associated neural responses in humans, and could potentially be used in the treatment of depression. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry by Oxford University researchers based at the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Warneford Hospital, Oxford, found that Epo, known as a treatment for anaemia, modulates human brain activity associated with the processing of emotion.
Well this is interesting…. imagine a rider who is ‘suffering’ depression, perhaps because they are not winning? OK, too obvious. Perhaps they really are clinically depressed. In the near future they may well be prescribed EPO to lift their spirits… I’m feeling depressed just thinking about it!
From Physorg.com: A search for novel treatment strategies in coping with depression has revealed that erythropoietin, or Epo, a hormone naturally produced by the kidneys to stimulate the formation of red blood cells, affects cognitive and associated neural responses in humans, and could potentially be used in the treatment of depression. The study, published in Biological Psychiatry by Oxford University researchers based at the Department of Experimental Psychology and the Warneford Hospital, Oxford, found that Epo, known as a treatment for anaemia, modulates human brain activity associated with the processing of emotion.
A roundup of the latest dopage du jour… you don’t want to miss out on Eddy’s wait for justice, Totschnig’s plea for a fair go after being implicated in the as-yet unproved Viennese blood bank ‘scandal’, Davis’s painful search for a team after, again, implication in something he was not involved in, and more…. all the links go to recent articles by Cyclingnews.com. Opinions are mine.
- Guilty as charged, Mazzoleni waits The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) released a statement on Tuesday calling for Eddy Mazzoleni to serve a two-year ban for his involvement in the ‘Oil for drugs’ scandal. The charges against Mazzoleni relate to SMS messages sent to Italian doctor Carlo Santuccione in 2004, said to contain requests for banned substances and treatments. The Italian cycling federation will now decide whether to accept CONI’s recommended sanction for the 34 year-old Italian.
- Implicated but innocent, Totschnig sues Georg Totschnig will sue the German television station ARD for libel and defamation for its broadcast earlier this month claiming he was a blood-doping client at the Viennese blood bank “Humanplasma”, even though he knows that “the damage can’t be mended.”.
- Implicated, innocent and out of a job: Davis struggles after cleared Former Discovery Channel rider Allan Davis is reported to be getting high-ranked support out of the International Cycling Union (UCI) in his search for a new team. Davis, who got caught up in the Operación Puerto scandal in 2006, was cleared of any charges before signing with the American team for the 2007 season. Despite good racing results last year, the Australian sprinter has nevertheless not been able to find a new squad for 2008, as his reputation is heavily tainted since his name was mentioned in the Spanish doping affair.
- Computers pitch in to help make things better With the ProTour season ready to start in Australia at the Tour Down Under this January, the UCI’s latest anti-doping tool, the biological passport, is also set to hopefully make 2008 one of the cleanest cycling years ever. One key element to the increased out-of-competition tests (7000 tests in 2008 as compared to 1000 last year) is the introduction of a reliable riders’ whereabouts system, the ADAMS computer system (Anti-Doping Administration & Management System).
- Basso actually happy to be suspended, so why did he wait so long? Being suspended “was the best thing that could have happened to me,” said Ivan Basso, whose career as a pro cyclist is currently on hold. “It gave me time to reflect and it has turned my life around.” The Italian was given a two-year ban for his involvement in Operación Puerto.
- And the source of recent dramas, German TV backs down over Viennese blood bank claims German television station ARD has retracted its charges that four pro cyclists and unnamed German skiers and biathletes were involved in illegal doping at the Viennese blood center, “Human Plasma”. Before Thursday afternoon’s broadcast of a biathlon race, a moderator said, “It is not justified and not compatible with our professional standards, that such sweeping charges be made without having any evidence to back them up. We regret that accusations and suspicions against athletes arose because of this report.”
- Who knows what else may happen in 2008? I suspect there’s loads more to come with too many unanswered questions lingering in the air.
A roundup of the latest dopage du jour… you don’t want to miss out on Eddy’s wait for justice, Totschnig’s plea for a fair go after being implicated in the as-yet unproved Viennese blood bank ‘scandal’, Davis’s painful search for a team after, again, implication in something he was not involved in, and more…. all the links go to recent articles by Cyclingnews.com. Opinions are mine.
- Guilty as charged, Mazzoleni waits The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) released a statement on Tuesday calling for Eddy Mazzoleni to serve a two-year ban for his involvement in the ‘Oil for drugs’ scandal. The charges against Mazzoleni relate to SMS messages sent to Italian doctor Carlo Santuccione in 2004, said to contain requests for banned substances and treatments. The Italian cycling federation will now decide whether to accept CONI’s recommended sanction for the 34 year-old Italian.
- Implicated but innocent, Totschnig sues Georg Totschnig will sue the German television station ARD for libel and defamation for its broadcast earlier this month claiming he was a blood-doping client at the Viennese blood bank “Humanplasma”, even though he knows that “the damage can’t be mended.”.
- Implicated, innocent and out of a job: Davis struggles after cleared Former Discovery Channel rider Allan Davis is reported to be getting high-ranked support out of the International Cycling Union (UCI) in his search for a new team. Davis, who got caught up in the Operación Puerto scandal in 2006, was cleared of any charges before signing with the American team for the 2007 season. Despite good racing results last year, the Australian sprinter has nevertheless not been able to find a new squad for 2008, as his reputation is heavily tainted since his name was mentioned in the Spanish doping affair.
- Computers pitch in to help make things better With the ProTour season ready to start in Australia at the Tour Down Under this January, the UCI’s latest anti-doping tool, the biological passport, is also set to hopefully make 2008 one of the cleanest cycling years ever. One key element to the increased out-of-competition tests (7000 tests in 2008 as compared to 1000 last year) is the introduction of a reliable riders’ whereabouts system, the ADAMS computer system (Anti-Doping Administration & Management System).
- Basso actually happy to be suspended, so why did he wait so long? Being suspended “was the best thing that could have happened to me,” said Ivan Basso, whose career as a pro cyclist is currently on hold. “It gave me time to reflect and it has turned my life around.” The Italian was given a two-year ban for his involvement in Operación Puerto.
- And the source of recent dramas, German TV backs down over Viennese blood bank claims German television station ARD has retracted its charges that four pro cyclists and unnamed German skiers and biathletes were involved in illegal doping at the Viennese blood center, “Human Plasma”. Before Thursday afternoon’s broadcast of a biathlon race, a moderator said, “It is not justified and not compatible with our professional standards, that such sweeping charges be made without having any evidence to back them up. We regret that accusations and suspicions against athletes arose because of this report.”
- Who knows what else may happen in 2008? I suspect there’s loads more to come with too many unanswered questions lingering in the air.
We all die; although some of us are also re-born, perhaps. But what about an artistic, if commercial, concept? Do artistic constructs die? For example can we truly say that the ‘album’ is dead, in the context of popular music? Of course we can say it, but what does it mean? Is it death in terms of sales alone, or can the spirit live on? I have some 300 hundred vinyl albums in my house – have they just gone skywards? Obviously not (but I’ll check). Or is it the vinyl itself that has died? Well they still make ‘em flat and grooved, so they can’t be totally dead. Or is it the format – the loose coupling of a musical story, an artist’s selection of music that expresses a time or a feeling and fits one of several fairly well defined shapes and sizes? Maybe that’s it.
The first part of that ‘format’ definition surely won’t die – capturing the essence of an artist’s creativity at a time or place, or their particular feeling at that point in time will go on and on. We will continue to make and record music that expresses time and place. But the restriction in shape and size of output may indeed alter. There is no need today to restrict ourselves to 20 minutes of reasonable quality audio per side of LP vinyl, for example. Or even to pack 60minutes onto a CD. We can stream MP3s ad infinitum if we want. But is that an album? Or do we have to redefine ‘album’?
Seems to me that an album is a package of sorts. It must have a theme and a defined size. Photo albums continue to be like that, even in a digital world – they are defined in some way. Otherwise they are just unsorted collections. This is after all our model for musical albums. And just because we can stream data ‘forever’ doesn’t mean we should discard the album as a concept. Or the concept album for that matter. So I think it still exists, but exists in a world where it faces a challenge: do artists want to retain and work within this album format, rather like poets may want to write in sonnet form? Or do they prefer to live with and embrace digital streaming and the endless track-mashing that comes from single-track online sales?
What prompted this rave was this CNET article. The point is that online sales of single tracks takes control away from the artist and gives it to the consumer. All of the artistic pretension in the world can’t overcome the buyer’s urge to buy and listen to only the music they like. But how different is this from the recent past, where we may have bought an album but only played the singles; or simply bought the singles. We’ve always listened to what we liked. Except now we can make these choices even easier and even burn our own CDs in the shape we prefer, if we want. More to ponder in our changing world I guess.
Yeah, ok, it’s D-grade but every race is as hard as you make it, or as hard as that guy who should go up a grade makes it, anyway. So here are some pics to show you what the new ibike2 software is like… Straight below is an overview of the new data display. You get a detailed data summary on the top left, now including some aero values you can plug into other software for comparison, or to take away and tweak.  You also get a useful tool for analysing the data, setting barometric pressure and adjusting your ‘coast-down’ values post-ride. So you can load old rides and update the ibike values, for example, if you have adjusted ‘em. It gives you more control over the results. The blue area is the crit last week. The rest is pre-race warmup and post-race cool-down. Top-most graph is power in Watts. Next is speed, then elevation and last of all slope. You can see from elevation that there’s a hill each lap… and you can move the cursor to any point and get power, speed and elevation data at that point.
 And this is the power peak in close up. Along the bottom of the display you see the data on the cursor: 752W, 35.9kmh, 3.8% slope. If you run those numbers through your calculator (plus weight, temp, barometer, elevation, headwind, all available from the ibike) you’ll verify that’s pretty darn close. The only real problem is when you hit the ‘go’ button too hard on a climb and lift the front wheel. You can easily turn 3.8 degrees into 4.5, or more, and get a huge – and inaccurate – power reading. But you can fix that any number of ways, too. Especially if you ride the same hill a few times and know the slope doesn’t exceed 4.5%, for example.
 Last for today – this is a closeup on the velocity peak. Speed maxed out in the sprint at a lowly 49.1km/h, best so far being over 55kmh, but it was into a headwind this time, and I managed to pick the wrong wheel to follow, too. So I ended up in front too early. Still, you can see the power peak on the hill just prior to the downhill sprint – basically where the last attack went. We continued at good speed until the 90 degree left turn but power is down because I’m on a wheel and we are dropping elevation. Someone starts the sprint, I chase, catch and get marooned. Ooops. You can see the sprint power is 529W and the wind has increased markedly after the left-turn.
True, it doesn’t tell you anything that you couldn’t have worked out anyway, but it puts it right in your face -up in lights. 3 races documented so far and I know how critical that hill is – it’s where most attacks start, especially on the last lap. I can see exactly what power I need to generate to match those attacks, and I can see how important it is to stay calm, hang onto a wheel and don’t go too early in the sprint, especially if it’s windy! And I can take this data away, find a similar hill and practice putting out 700W+ intervals. I could tailor a ‘crit simulation’ session around this data and see what works. I may find that those steep, medium-power intervals don’t help me in crits and that I need to do more snappy, higher power efforts over shorter distances. And so on.
You can do it by feel, or you can buy a power meter and ‘prove’ your theories. It’s up to you.
Yeah, ok, it’s D-grade but every race is as hard as you make it, or as hard as that guy who should go up a grade makes it, anyway. So here are some pics to show you what the new ibike2 software is like… Straight below is an overview of the new data display. You get a detailed data summary on the top left, now including some aero values you can plug into other software for comparison, or to take away and tweak. You also get a useful tool for analysing the data, setting barometric pressure and adjusting your ‘coast-down’ values post-ride. So you can load old rides and update the ibike values, for example, if you have adjusted ‘em. It gives you more control over the results. The blue area is the crit last week. The rest is pre-race warmup and post-race cool-down. Top-most graph is power in Watts. Next is speed, then elevation and last of all slope. You can see from elevation that there’s a hill each lap… and you can move the cursor to any point and get power, speed and elevation data at that point.
And this is the power peak in close up. Along the bottom of the display you see the data on the cursor: 752W, 35.9kmh, 3.8% slope. If you run those numbers through your calculator (plus weight, temp, barometer, elevation, headwind, all available from the ibike) you’ll verify that’s pretty darn close. The only real problem is when you hit the ‘go’ button too hard on a climb and lift the front wheel. You can easily turn 3.8 degrees into 4.5, or more, and get a huge – and inaccurate – power reading. But you can fix that any number of ways, too. Especially if you ride the same hill a few times and know the slope doesn’t exceed 4.5%, for example.
Last for today – this is a closeup on the velocity peak. Speed maxed out in the sprint at a lowly 49.1km/h, best so far being over 55kmh, but it was into a headwind this time, and I managed to pick the wrong wheel to follow, too. So I ended up in front too early. Still, you can see the power peak on the hill just prior to the downhill sprint – basically where the last attack went. We continued at good speed until the 90 degree left turn but power is down because I’m on a wheel and we are dropping elevation. Someone starts the sprint, I chase, catch and get marooned. Ooops. You can see the sprint power is 529W and the wind has increased markedly after the left-turn.
True, it doesn’t tell you anything that you couldn’t have worked out anyway, but it puts it right in your face -up in lights. 3 races documented so far and I know how critical that hill is – it’s where most attacks start, especially on the last lap. I can see exactly what power I need to generate to match those attacks, and I can see how important it is to stay calm, hang onto a wheel and don’t go too early in the sprint, especially if it’s windy! And I can take this data away, find a similar hill and practice putting out 700W+ intervals. I could tailor a ‘crit simulation’ session around this data and see what works. I may find that those steep, medium-power intervals don’t help me in crits and that I need to do more snappy, higher power efforts over shorter distances. And so on.
You can do it by feel, or you can buy a power meter and ‘prove’ your theories. It’s up to you.
Yeah, right. A tough D-grade crit. Riiiight. Well after 2x 1st places in a row I was hungry for a 2nd place this time and did a lot more work at the front. And this time I’ll show you the pictures. If you are using Firefox this will work fine, but MS Internet Explorer usually goes haywire and wrecks my layout. Well I use Firefox and I don’t care. Firstly, my spreadsheet view of the race data. Basically I took the ibike data from the .csv file and poured it into my own spreadsheet. It gives me max power, average power, mean, average minus zeros, average in power bands, max watts/kilogram, VAM, average and max speed, average and max inclination… I think you get the picture. The normalisation is my own formula (changed once again – it’s an evolving beast).
OK, yes, 31.1kmh is a slow average. There was headwind down the short straight and a 4.5% hill each 2km lap, though. It was the slowest of my 3 ‘comeback’ races, but I did more work, too. Average was 155W but if you discount the zeroes (ie drafting, coasting) it was 170W. If you believe in my new normalisation formula it was 234, a dubious measure but the highest race figure so far (at least I can agree with that, it felt like the biggest effort).
The sprint was again in 2 parts: the attack up the hill was the Wattage peak, followed by a slowish downhill sprint into a headwind. I lacked punch and when I caught the breeze I stagnated… but held onto 2nd, anyway.
Yeah, right. A tough D-grade crit. Riiiight. Well after 2x 1st places in a row I was hungry for a 2nd place this time and did a lot more work at the front. And this time I’ll show you the pictures. If you are using Firefox this will work fine, but MS Internet Explorer usually goes haywire and wrecks my layout. Well I use Firefox and I don’t care.Firstly, my spreadsheet view of the race data. Basically I took the ibike data from the .csv file and poured it into my own spreadsheet. It gives me max power, average power, mean, average minus zeros, average in power bands, max watts/kilogram, VAM, average and max speed, average and max inclination… I think you get the picture. The normalisation is my own formula (changed once again – it’s an evolving beast).
OK, yes, 31.1kmh is a slow average. There was headwind down the short straight and a 4.5% hill each 2km lap, though. It was the slowest of my 3 ‘comeback’ races, but I did more work, too. Average was 155W but if you discount the zeroes (ie drafting, coasting) it was 170W. If you believe in my new normalisation formula it was 234, a dubious measure but the highest race figure so far (at least I can agree with that, it felt like the biggest effort).
The sprint was again in 2 parts: the attack up the hill was the Wattage peak, followed by a slowish downhill sprint into a headwind. I lacked punch and when I caught the breeze I stagnated… but held onto 2nd, anyway.
I’m not sure why, but plenty of riders are turning to running, especially after retirement from pro cycling. Is it a fear of incipient osteoporosis? The lure of a new challenge? Less time-consuming? Or is running just easier? (I doubt the latter.) Anyway, here are some more… starting with Rabo’s Michael Boogerd:Meanwhile, he is still staying athletically involved. He plans to run the Rotterdam marathon on April 13, as preparation for the RopaRun, a three day event from Paris to Rotterdam which raises money for charity. “It is for a good cause, and now that I have stopped racing I still need do something to keep my condition on a good level,” Boogerd said. “I now try to run an hour each day. It does me good. Later this year, I want to run the New York marathon.” His training partner is Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel, who ran the New York marathon in 2007. “I asked him and Michael was enthusiastic,” she said. “After my cycling career, I found running to be a new sport where I feel good. I think that running will also be good for Michael.”
And Armstrong, of course: Lance Armstrong will continue his post-retirement marathon career by competing in the Boston Marathon on April 21, the race organisers announced Thursday. Armstrong qualified after finishing the New York City Marathon in 2007, bettering his previous year’s effort with a finishing time of two hours 46 minutes and 43 seconds. The seven time Tour de France champion was well under the Boston Marathon’s qualifying time for his 35-to-39 age group of three hours 15 minutes.
I’m not sure why, but plenty of riders are turning to running, especially after retirement from pro cycling. Is it a fear of incipient osteoporosis? The lure of a new challenge? Less time-consuming? Or is running just easier? (I doubt the latter.) Anyway, here are some more… starting with Rabo’s Michael Boogerd:Meanwhile, he is still staying athletically involved. He plans to run the Rotterdam marathon on April 13, as preparation for the RopaRun, a three day event from Paris to Rotterdam which raises money for charity. “It is for a good cause, and now that I have stopped racing I still need do something to keep my condition on a good level,” Boogerd said. “I now try to run an hour each day. It does me good. Later this year, I want to run the New York marathon.” His training partner is Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel, who ran the New York marathon in 2007. “I asked him and Michael was enthusiastic,” she said. “After my cycling career, I found running to be a new sport where I feel good. I think that running will also be good for Michael.”
And Armstrong, of course: Lance Armstrong will continue his post-retirement marathon career by competing in the Boston Marathon on April 21, the race organisers announced Thursday. Armstrong qualified after finishing the New York City Marathon in 2007, bettering his previous year’s effort with a finishing time of two hours 46 minutes and 43 seconds. The seven time Tour de France champion was well under the Boston Marathon’s qualifying time for his 35-to-39 age group of three hours 15 minutes.
OK, you didn’t ask, but here I go. Some thoughts and questions to consider for today.
- Why is it that the bicycle industry can make frames that are compatible with the drivetrains of at least 3 major manufacturers and the componentry of just about everyone? Doesn’t that (otherwise very sensible) component commonality impinge upon product differentiation?
- Why is it that automotive companies can barely get it together to share wheels and tyres and sundry hidden mechanicals and electricals? Sure they have tried to share platforms and engines, and there are plenty of exceptions, but generally they keep reinventing the wheel; or in this case the complete drivetrain and monocoque shell. Does this more complete individualism grant some competitive advantage or are they simply blind to the savings that they could make for themselves, their customers and the world?
- Why is it that the PC industry is split so unevenly between the bespoke “locked-up” designs like Apple’s and the open, modular and shared componentry that the “IBM-compatible” (or perhaps ‘Intel/Microsoft architecture-compatible’) makers comply with? What can we take away from the far greater market penetration of the latter approach? Or the higher prices and possibly ‘cooler’ designs from the low-volume makers?
- What is the best approach for the world (including our living environment as well as our economic one)? To evolve shared componentry in all cases and thereby reduce overlap and waste; or to instead foster maximum competitive differentiation with bespoke, individualised design? Or to balance the 2 approaches? Or to find a 3rd way?
- If there is ‘a better way’, should governments mandate it? Car safety legislation would be one example when government has enforced a common standard of safer design, however I have the sneaking suspicion that there are better, lighter, cheaper safety systems than the amazingly contrived explosive ‘airbag’ system that car companies have foist upon us. Airbags are of course less intrusive than helmets, harnesses and the like – but are they ‘better’? Is this an example where the compromise reached favours maximising car sales over implementing good sense? Or do the practical problems of getting people to wear harnesses and helmets outweigh the benefits?
These are the questions on my mind right now. More later, I’m sure…
Gotta say it’s funny or my computer will reboot…
Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip
Filed under Bill Gates by Rob.
Gotta say it’s funny or my computer will reboot…
Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip
Filed under Bill Gates by Rob.
It’s instructive to take a step back and learn from the past. What we do today often references and builds upon earlier ideas and forms. For example by making digital cameras look and behave a bit like traditional film cameras we make it easier to adapt, learn and take on the new ways. (On the other hand it holds back truly revolutionary designs a tad and keeps us a little hemmed in by the past. It doesn’t help those who have never used a film camera at all, either.)
Hanging onto the shape of a 35mm camera is not a bad thing. And carrying-over the terminology of chemical processing at least makes continuity of experience possible. If you knew how to develop and print film then you already knew about framing, cropping, burning-in, blocking, stops, depth of field, film speed and so on. And these things (and more) have been carried over as a standard set of terms.
OK, so let’s explain a few things, just in case.
- Cropping and framing are obvious enough analogs for what we do with the printed (or framed, like a painting) output
- Film speed is just the speed with which the light is captured and retained as a potential image, and digital cameras also react more (or less) sensitively to light in much the same way
- Depth of field is the “in focus” area of a shot, and it changes with focal length and aperture, so what you think is in focus may not be… stopping down a bit will deepen that focus area
- But what is this “stopping” business? Stops are a measure of how much light is getting into your camera, digital or not. When you change the aperture by one stop upwards, you are doubling the amount of light in the scene, making things altogether brighter but risking some over-exposure
- But by stopping down you reduce the light available, ie 1 stop down halves the light. You risk darkening the whole image but get more “depth” of focus
- In this way 2 stops upward is four times the original amount of light, or just a quarter if you stop down
- On an analog camera you twist the aperture ring or adjust the camera’s overall tendency to under or over-expose by “fiddling” with your ISO/ASA film speed ring. On a digital it’s usual to find an Exposure Value (EV) control that probably lets you adjust the under or over-exposure in finer increments, such as 1/3 stop
- So why bother? Back in the old days lightmeters and film behaved in different ways on different days, often because film ‘ripened’ and changed in its reaction to light. So stopping down to slightly under-expose was common, especially effective when using Kodak’s Ektachrome slide film, and of course stopping down gains you depth of field whilst opening the aperture decreases that depth
- But now we can see our digital image instantly, and if we see an image that’s over or under-exposed and want to try again it’s easy – just use that EV adjustment to stop up or down slightly and try again.
Experiment with that EV control (or the aperture ring and/or the ISO/ASA filmspeed if you still use a film camera. See what you can do to capture more of that image, the way you like it! More later…
It’s instructive to take a step back and learn from the past. What we do today often references and builds upon earlier ideas and forms. For example by making digital cameras look and behave a bit like traditional film cameras we make it easier to adapt, learn and take on the new ways. (On the other hand it holds back truly revolutionary designs a tad and keeps us a little hemmed in by the past. It doesn’t help those who have never used a film camera at all, either.)
Hanging onto the shape of a 35mm camera is not a bad thing. And carrying-over the terminology of chemical processing at least makes continuity of experience possible. If you knew how to develop and print film then you already knew about framing, cropping, burning-in, blocking, stops, depth of field, film speed and so on. And these things (and more) have been carried over as a standard set of terms.
OK, so let’s explain a few things, just in case.
- Cropping and framing are obvious enough analogs for what we do with the printed (or framed, like a painting) output
- Film speed is just the speed with which the light is captured and retained as a potential image, and digital cameras also react more (or less) sensitively to light in much the same way
- Depth of field is the “in focus” area of a shot, and it changes with focal length and aperture, so what you think is in focus may not be… stopping down a bit will deepen that focus area
- But what is this “stopping” business? Stops are a measure of how much light is getting into your camera, digital or not. When you change the aperture by one stop upwards, you are doubling the amount of light in the scene, making things altogether brighter but risking some over-exposure
- But by stopping down you reduce the light available, ie 1 stop down halves the light. You risk darkening the whole image but get more “depth” of focus
- In this way 2 stops upward is four times the original amount of light, or just a quarter if you stop down
- On an analog camera you twist the aperture ring or adjust the camera’s overall tendency to under or over-expose by “fiddling” with your ISO/ASA film speed ring. On a digital it’s usual to find an Exposure Value (EV) control that probably lets you adjust the under or over-exposure in finer increments, such as 1/3 stop
- So why bother? Back in the old days lightmeters and film behaved in different ways on different days, often because film ‘ripened’ and changed in its reaction to light. So stopping down to slightly under-expose was common, especially effective when using Kodak’s Ektachrome slide film, and of course stopping down gains you depth of field whilst opening the aperture decreases that depth
- But now we can see our digital image instantly, and if we see an image that’s over or under-exposed and want to try again it’s easy – just use that EV adjustment to stop up or down slightly and try again.
Experiment with that EV control (or the aperture ring and/or the ISO/ASA filmspeed if you still use a film camera. See what you can do to capture more of that image, the way you like it! More later…
I managed to win the local crit again – yes folks, D-grade. Well I had to work at it! I had to avoid falling (one rider down as a faster grade caught us on a corner – nasty!) and I had to watch for breaks (just one semi-serious attempt, easily caught). And I had to patiently wait for the impetuous youngster to start the sprint.
More importantly it gave me more race data. So I can confirm that last week’s 1400W burst was indeed an error on the ibike’s part, as expected. I’ll show you the data later but every lap we went over a small hill, and each lap the hill got steeper. Or so the ibike thought. When ‘corrected’ it’s still a 900W effort (bridging a last-lap gap). This week’s data is much more consistent and the peak power a more miserly 800W. I was careful not to expend too much energy in short bursts, rather I anticipated accelerations and smoothly bridged. Each lap the hill registered between 300 and 5ooW effort and 42% of the race was above 200W. If you trust the ibike, of course!
It’s a slightly downhill sprint so although I briefly hit 55kmh the power was just on 600W.
I have upgraded to ibike firware v1.16. I always reset after a ride and do a re-tilt when changing bikes. I have a battery of coast-down data to tap into a well. It’s not perfect, it certainly goes awry when the barometer is moving around, and if you lift the bars or otherwise drastically alter your weight distribution during a ride then it can generate some flaky figures… but it works well enough to be a great tool for the data junkie on a budget.
Filed under CCCC, crits, ibike, racing by Rob.
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