Koppology

Motivation to Train: Killington Stage Race, Day 3

Preface

Days 1 and 2 have been fun, but have definitely established that I am one of the weakest in the field. I was dropped on the first hill in Day 1’s circuit race, and placed 52 out of 56 in the time trial on Day 2. Granted, I had no aero equipment… but still.

Day 3

61 mile road race, 3,000+ feet of climbing. Goal: do not get dropped at the first hill.

Roll out from staging. 15 mph, I can do this. Started near the back of the pack, but weaving my way through towards the front. OH SHIT someone’s chain came out and I almost hit them. OK, keep your cool. Here comes the first hill. Middle of the pack. Cross-chain. Trim the front derailleur. Shit, why is everyone going faster than me. Get out of the saddle. Shift to 36. Shitshitshit how the hell did I get to the back of the pack —

Dropped. Like a rock. The pack is pulling away, slowly, painfully. Nothing I can do.

Downhill. Heavyset RPI rider blasts past from behind. He screams, “COME ON BUDDY, GET ON MY WHEEL.” Draft. Conserve energy. Maximal energy efficiency on downhill slipstream, thanks Nate for that info, thank you time trial practice. Caught a group of four. Paceline. Thirty second pulls. Why are you going off the front, Stampede? OK. Conserve energy. Foot from his wheel. For chrisssake don’t stop pedaling or I’m going to crash into you.

The next climb. Second wheel, good position. Shift down. Shift again. Shift aga— oh, hello, 36/28. Shit, this looks harder than I expected. Grind, get out of the saddle. Passed. An encouraging pat on the back. Sympathy. Passed passed passedpassedpassed —

Dropped. Again. Fuck.

Time trial on the downhill. Conserve energy, get low, get in the drops. So sweaty, so much pain. Glance at the computer — the race isn’t even half over yet. Is there anyone out there in my field? 

A siren. Women’s 1/2 field is catching me. “Go, Katie, go!” Feed zone. “ALI!” Inwardly: “HELP!” Grab the bottle. Drink. Pour on neck. Keep going. Oh look, there’s Yuri in a group of 3, she’s been dropped too. Downhill. Chase. Keep pace. Gravel. Shade. Thank god. What’s that up ahead? Around a corner, a lone figure in white. Chase, chase. Don’t brake on the downhill, corner hard, chase more, and I’m with him.

Slow down. 17mph. Taking pulls. We talk a bit. His name’s Craig, he’s been racing for a while, but is coming off an injury. Like me. 20 miles of companionship. Passing stragglers, getting passed by stragglers. Empty gels on the side of the road are the only testament to being on course. Nearing Skyeship base camp. “I don’t think I can go on any further, you go ahead.” It was nice meeting you, Craig. There’s nothing like the companionship of a fellow dropped rider.

The final climb. 1,500 feet of stiff gradient. I’ve been conserving energy as much as possible for this. Just finish the damn thing. Here we go. 36/28 immediately. Putting my back into it. Oh god, so much pain. Get out of the saddle for a particularly stiff gradient. Am I even moving anywhere? Should I just get out and push? Here comes the Women’s 3/4 field. Guess I should keep going. 5K to go. GRIND. PAIN. Oh shit, that was for the KOM, there’s still another 5K to go after that. A small piece of me dies. One by one, the women’s 3/4 field pulls away from me.

Pass our condo. Where’s the end? I just want to finish and lie down in the shade. Scream down one more downhill, then it’s a stiff gradient to the end. 500 meters to go. Each pedal stroke hurts. Yells of encouragement from Steven and Zach, from bystanders. “Come on, this is what you trained for! Everything you got!” My mind is numb. There is only sunlight and pain and pedaling.

Finally! Over the line. I practically collapse. Thanks for the bottle of water, Zach.

Place: 46 out of 56 starters.

Thanks to the whole MIT Cycling team for awesome cameraderie, great home-cooked dinners, lots of cycling-related tips and tricks, and for convincing me to do this race which I had no business entering. Especially congrats to the Zachs for their 7th and 8th places in the Cat 3 field.

Bike up to Concord

A beautiful day for cycling. Rode up to Concord with Garcia and Matt. By assiduously staying in Garcia’ slipstream, I was able to keep up with them easily, even on my steel commuter with a rack and fat tires. Can’t wait to start racing on a Specialized Allez, which I’m purchasing through the MIT Cycling team.

I also recently read The Rider by Tim Krabbe, a chess grandmaster turned amateur racer. It’s a very engrossing, minimalistic, and powerful book, even if the author is somewhat arrogant (first paragraph: “Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”) Nevertheless, I think it captured the essence of a rider’s thoughts, as well as his suffering. I definitely recommend reading, even for the non-cyclist.

Goodbye Ultimate, Hello Cycling

A year and a half ago, I tore my right ACL, and despite surgery and PT, the knee simply isn’t what it used to be. My former sport of choice, ultimate frisbee, is now quite painful to play, even at a jog. Unless my knee recovers substantially from this suboptimal steady-state, it’s time to hang up my cleats. It’s a little sad, because ultimate was such a huge part of my life in college, and some of my best and closest friends have come from playing the sport. To all my ultimate friends out there, from Superfly, Ramona, Team Black/Orange/Brown/Purple winter league, Mako, CT Summer League and pickup, Broadmead Frisbeeheads, Phage Against the Machine, and MIT pickup, thank you for all the wonderful times and cameraderie — I hope that you continue to enjoy the sport, and hope to keep in touch. In particular, a big shoutout to everyone on Superfly. We got it all, we buy gold.

In the meantime, I’ve been going out on weekend bicycle rides with members of the Bartel lab, including Vincent, Dave Garcia, Matt, and Noah. Not only do I enjoy their company, but the sport is also easy on my knee, has a fun mechanical aspect to it, and suits my body geometry well (basically, I am an skinny geek sitting on top of two beefy calves). I’m also enthralled by the freedom and emotional catharsis that cycling affords. In short, I’ve been enjoying myself a lot, and this will be my recreation of choice for some time to come.

Also, to quote Garcia, “it’s now a tradition for Bartel lab members to bike up to New Hampshire for the annual retreat. So, you and Matt are up for next year… no pressure or anything.”

So, now I am in the market for a new road/racing bike. I biked to Arlington today to visit Quad Cycles, which apparently has a wide selection of road bicycles. On the way there, I noticed that the pedals on my Jamis Coda Sport, my commuter bike, would sporadically “jump forward,” ceasing to engage. The owner, Rustem Gode, a former Turkish national bike team mechanic, immediately identified the problem as a deformation of the rear hub (due to my bicycle wheels being stolen and replaced by the bike thieves with shittier wheels… but that’s another story). He replaced the wheel, and the ride home was orders of magnitude smoother. Thanks Rustem! He also offered to build up a De Bernardi steel frame custom for me with Shimano 105 components. Even if I don’t buy the De Bernardi (which is very tempting) I’ll definitely be back for the Quad Cycle group rides, which apparently depart every Saturday and Sunday at 9:30am.

I’m also thinking about the Everti Falcon, which seems like an affordable titanium frame. If you have any thoughts about good road bikes ($1000-2200 price range), let me know.

A (slightly) better (but still hacky) method for subscribing to a CalDAV server with Google Calendar

It’s problematic that Google Calendar cannot subscribe to a CalDAV server.

After a bit of research, I found that it’s possible to automate downloads from CalDAV servers using a combination of cron, expect, and cadaver, a command-line web CalDAV client. Then, in theory, one could host a .ics file on some server, and subscribe to that file using the “Add URL” functionality in Google Calendar. However, I was surprised and dismayed to find that CalDAV stores its calendar not as one .ics file, but rather as multiple .ics files, one for each event!

Therefore, I modified a python script for merging .ics files, wrapped all of these components in yet another python script that uses settings files to provide parameters, and installed it on a server.

Incredibly hacky, but it works, and doesn’t resort to GUI programming. 

Well, that was fun. I’ve wasted enough time now, though, time to get back to more important matters.

An Applescript Program for Backing Up Named iCal Calendars

I recently obtained a new Android phone. After about 12 hours of revelling in my newfound connectivity and downloading practically every app on the market, I realized that I couldn’t access the Whitehead Institute’s calendars, which contain, among other things, my lab’s lab meeting schedule. After confirming this sad state of affairs with the IT folks downstairs, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I managed to code up a piece of software that takes a list of calendars you wish to backup, automatically exports them to .ics, and then optionally loads them to a server. Because the clever Apple developers never actually programmed the export feature into the iCal API, I had to resort to GUI programming. Enter Applescript. With the help of an incredible UI Browser, I created a GUI script that does all of this. It’s actually pretty fun to watch, it basically takes over your computer and starts opening windows and such.

Enjoy!

A few useful software links

1. My Dad wrote this presentation on Mercurial for his development team. Check it out, it’s pretty sweet.
   
   pkoppstein:

   Mercurial: The Joy of Versioned Repositories

   

   Presentation given November 18, 2011

2. A nifty wrapper for virtualenv.
3. Bioinformatics for biologists.

Notes on Fixing a Bike Tire Flat

Today, I went to the Broadway Bicycle School’s first basic class on how to fix a flat. It was taught well, and there were only eight people in attendance. If you’re in the Cambridge area, I highly recommend it! I can’t recall every detail, but I’ll try to fill in from memory what I can. My bike is a 2011 Jamis Coda Sport.

Step 1: Take off the wheel.

1. Shift to lowest gear.
2. Release the brakes.
   • On the rear wheel of my bike, this is done by clamping the brakes together and threading the brake line through a small hole.
3. Unhinge the quick release on the wheel.
4. Unhinge the derailleur.
   • The derailleur holds the bike wheel in place, even when the quick release is unlocked. It needs to be moved aside, which can be done with the silvery Shimano Long CageRear Derailleur component.
5. Take off the wheel.

Step 2: Remove the tire and tube.

• The recommended method is to use three tire levers.
• The first tire lever is inserted next to the valve and clamped to a spoke.
• The next is inserted at an adjacent spoke.
• The third is inserted at another adjacent spoke. The second should fall out at this point.
• Continue prying the tire out until the first lever falls out.
• At this point, grasp the tire between your legs and pull the tire and tube out with a single motion, with one hand pulling up and the other down.
• Remove the tube from the tire.

Step 3: Determine the cause of the flat.

• There are several types of flats:
  1. Snakebite (two holes): caused by the rim cutting into the tube. Prevention: keep tires inflated.
  2. Puncture (one hole): caused by riding over a sharp object. This is the most common type of flat, and is most common in the rear wheel, since most of the biker’s weight goes on the rear wheel. If this is the case, you must go through the entire tire by hand and by eye to check for shards or needles.
  3. Blowout: this is sometimes caused by the tube being improperly situated in the tire and the rim, or by overpressurizing the tire.
  4. Rim tape: sometimes there are holes in the rim, and the tube can scrape against them. If you see many dots in the tube that align with the holes in the rim, this may be the cause.

Step 4: Patch the flat or replace the tube.

• It’s recommended to carry a spare tube, and patch at home.
• There are a variety of patch kits available with detailed instructions.

Step 5: Replace the tube.

Step 6: Place the tire back on the wheel.

• This can be rather tricky. The recommended method is to start from the valve, again, and place one edge in the rim.
• Going around the wheel, push that edge of the tire onto the rim until it half-straddles the entire rim.
• Then, work the other edge of the tire into the rim, again starting from the valve. The last part is very difficult; focus on one bit at a time.
• Important! Make sure that the tube is deflated at this point; this will make things much easier.

Step 7: Place the wheel back in the bicycle, and check that the wheel runs true.

I’m writing this mostly for memory; for a more detailed account, see REI’s guide to fixing a flat.