It occurs to me that the appeal of the Tour de France has parallels with the popularity of survivor-style reality television programs. You put 200 bike riders together on television for three weeks, putting them through wacky and impossible challenges (“You mean we have to ride on cobbles?” or “We have to ride up that?”) and see who’s left standing at the end.
(Iban Mayo just got voted off the island.)
Spent the morning yesterday on the mountains on a bike.
Next Saturday is the Oak Flat Road Race, and I wanted to pre-ride the course so I had some idea. It’s a little less than two miles through the mountains, all ups and downs but not terribly steep and a beautiful course. It’s a little less than 13 miles. I’m in the E race, so I’ll do it just twice.
I went with my weather-geek buddy Charlie. We’ve known one another for years, but never ridden together, and it was fun. He brought along Jeff, a youngster who works with him. Charlie’s an old road bike racer, and he’s done Oak Flat before, so he was showing us the course. I was figuring we would need to be a bit gentle for Jeff, who is new to cycling, but he was strong as a horse – no worries there. He kept dropping Charlie and I and then waiting for us to catch up.
Sam Abt is my favorite cycling writer. He’s got a terrific eye for the ebb and flow of the Boucle. He pretty much nailed this one right:
Thor Hushovd, a 26-year-old Norwegian, has a big goal. Now in his fourth Tour de France and the winner of a daily stage in 2002, he says he has figured out how to gain the yellow jersey of the race’s leader.
Remember, this was before today’s stage.
Friends Paul and Anita dropped by yesterday with a turtle for us.
We have a male – Speedy – and they brought him a mate. Their backyard is a turtle world, and they’re always looking for good homes. We were flattered that we passed muster. We’re looking for a name. Suggestions welcome.
OK, the usual caveat – one data point is not enough to prove that anthropogenic climate change is upon us, just as one data point would prove that it isn’t. But here’s another one that is entirely consistent with the models’ predictions: early snow melt in Yosemite. (We watched the same thing happen in the watersheds of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado that feed our rivers here.)
This is the sort of thing that the models predict. Note that this is another chance to test whether the pattern of change is a result of natural variability or human-caused climate change. In this case, the potential source of natural variability, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, doesn’t fit the warming seen in the last few years.
Hunting for a reference to an old paper by Gwin Vivian, I ran across this talk from a few years back by the ubiquitous Jared Diamond. The questions raised by Diamond are relevant to the topic I’ve been reading about of late, the effect of climate variability on human societies. My question is why some societies adjust to variability on a decadal scale, while others collapse
Continue reading ‘Was it Drought?’ »
Uhh, I guess it’s really “game theory on the roads of Belgium” right now, but you get the idea.
Last year, RAND social scientist David Ronfeldt’s piece on game theory in NASCAR racing got a lot of traction. Game theory’s fascinating, and NASCAR is a terrific laboratory for its study, with complex problems of cooperation and defection.
But NASCAR’s got nothing on Le Tour, where it looks as though Iban Mayo and the Euskaltel squad have been caught behind a split in the peloton. That gives all the “heads of state,” as Phil and Paul would put it, a motivation to cooperate. For now.
With Le Tour about to commence, a poster to the local bike-racer’s mailing list offers a link to Phil and Paul Bingo.
Here’s the part where I’m self-deprecating about my bicycle racing skills and really mean it. No false modesty here. I got skunked Tuesday night.
Continue reading ‘TNC #9’ »
What was I supposed to do – call him for cheating better than me?
Like usual, unwilling to risk, I went for a sure winner Friday night at the video store and rented The Sting. Of course it didn’t disappoint. Made us want to go out and get Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Next time.