TDR 2012

[DocTrike]

moved to SS thread.

[Christopher R. Bennett]

Are reflectors *really* required in the USA?

I was reading Aidan Harding's blog (http://www.aidanharding.com/2011/06/tour-divide-decompression-begins/) and he comments:

>> As I rode along in the dark, I had my head light on, a flashing rear light and reflectives on my jacket, shoes, and leg-warmers. Nonetheless, I was stopped by a local Sheriff. He told me that reflectors were required in the US and he was concerned about my safety. So he drove me to the county line – It was kind of tense inside his car. I was overheating after the cool of the night and he seemed pretty humourless. When he dropped me off, I tried not to hum anything from The Dukes of Hazzard.


If they are required, what is the minimum one could get away with?

[cartographer]

Years ago I had some reflective stickers that I put on the inside of my rims which lasted a long time and seemed to work well.  Maybe some of this:http://www.amazon.com/3M-03456C-Scotchlite-Reflective-36-Inch/dp/B000BQRIV2/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt
would satisfy any regulations.

[BigPoppa]

Are reflectors *really* required in the USA?

I was reading Aidan Harding's blog (http://www.aidanharding.com/2011/06/tour-divide-decompression-begins/) and he comments:

>> As I rode along in the dark, I had my head light on, a flashing rear light and reflectives on my jacket, shoes, and leg-warmers. Nonetheless, I was stopped by a local Sheriff. He told me that reflectors were required in the US and he was concerned about my safety. So he drove me to the county line – It was kind of tense inside his car. I was overheating after the cool of the night and he seemed pretty humourless. When he dropped me off, I tried not to hum anything from The Dukes of Hazzard.


If they are required, what is the minimum one could get away with?

I talked to Aiden just after that during the race. It seems to me that it was more of a jurisdictional thing for that sheriff. Also, Aiden was riding off course to catch up to a spot that he had been at before this frame broke. I have a feeling that this wouldn't really happen on the actual course, it was more a result of being on a main road.

I really think you would be fine with out reflectors. At most, sew one or two onto your bag that hangs behind your seat and you will be fine.

[mtbcast]

It's getting close! I'll be doing manning the voice calls again this year. There may be some changes, though. I'm currently looking for a way to script as much of the raw calls as I can. It's really getting tedious to manually prepare each call and post. The problem is that's the value-add, right? Seeing a call and knowing this is from say Matthew Lee and so forth. It may, and I say may, be that the calls come in but the post is simply that this is a TD call for this time etc. This way I can post the calls more quickly and with less input. I'm looking at going back to commentary this year and could expound on the call more then. There's so much that has to be done by hand at this point and the biggest is quantifying the post with call information. Second to that is insuring the call is palatable. I often edit the audio both via a tool and by hand just to be sure no one gets a blast of noise mid-call. If I can't automate more of it to my satisfaction I'll be looking for someone who has the time in June/July who can edit and post what I can't do due to time constraints. All of this is shop-talk, I know, but if you see some changes in the posting and format of the calls know that it's being done to streamline things and ensure I'm spending less time formatting and such and focusing on getting the calls out as quickly as I can.

[phil_rad]

That's great Joe! So glad for the service.    My family and friends appreciate it too.

Any chance of you doing Shirts again like 2009?

Phil

[mtbcast]

I'd have to get a pre-order list. Maybe I'll see about working up a design. I can't promise, though.

[Done]

Thanks for all of your hard work, Joe!

[Christopher R. Bennett]

Joe,

Really grateful to see that you are willing to take this on again. I was just looking at your site on the weekend to see if it was on the cards.

Have you considered looking at the option of using Google Voice? This is what I use when travelling. This is a free service from Google which gives you a phone number you can use to reroute calls to your mobile, but more importantly, has a brilliant voice mail service. When you leave a voice mail with Google Voice it is transcribed and e-mailed out as a text file along with a link to an audio recording of the actual message.

So if we all had the same protocol like "Joe Bloggs Calling From Whoop Whoop" as our opening to the call, it would immediately help with identifying/transcribing etc. The transcription isn't perfect, but close enough to understand what is said.  Some smart coder could probably easily automate the process of putting the e-mails and links up on your web page.

Just a suggestion from someone who is terminally idle and always looking for the easy way to do something 

P.S. I'd be in for a shirt!

[mtbcast]

Well it's been suggested but as you note it's not perfect. We even worked with the developer to attempt to use it for just transcribing and it just didn't work. It wasn't actually Google developers but developers of the technology. It could be used for audio but the brilliance of using the eVoice service is that they email you the raw call immediately. This was particularly nice in the early days when we had transcribers because they would get the calls when I did. I would post the audio later and they could transcribe as soon as they could.

[jryter]

I was talking to a friend that did the TD last year and he said that all the guys he was with had problems with their Achilles tendon. Any good ideas to prevent this and tape up after you get it?

Or was it just them? They were going pretty hard all the way. Did any others have problems on long races like this?

[mtbcast]

It seems to be pretty common. Maybe some bike fit experts can chime in but I'd always heard that seat placement can really effect this. maybe there's a placement that lends itself to long rides.

[THE LONG RANGER]

I was talking to a friend that did the TD last year and he said that all the guys he was with had problems with their Achilles tendon. Any good ideas to prevent this and tape up after you get it?

Bike fits are worth it -

but the go-to strategy for Achilles tendon aggravation I believe is to put your cleat as far back as possible - maybe start out a few mm's back than you're used to and go from there. I dig the cleat back like that - feels better climbing and spinning to me. Changing cleat position can be weird, so give it some time when you work with it. Grain of salt as well - I've never had problem in this area before.

[mikepro]

I swear by bike fit as well.

I had achilles tenderness in 2010.  Used healing balm judiciously each day, multi-times.  Soaked legs from quad-down in icy mountain streams - this always works wonders for me.  Also iced heavily when stayed in hotel.  Still the achilles developed a weird crunchy feel after about a week of riding.  I didn't tape, just raised/lowered my heel throughout the day to change riding style/position.  Never got worse than the crunchy feel, and more discomfort than pain.  Don't remember how long after finishing until the feeling went away ... a month seems about right.

[stappy]

Thanks Joe, we all love mtb cast, especially those listening from home.

Achilles tendinitis keep me out of the mass start last year. From what I've learned it is primarily caused by tight calf muscles. In physio I started a regime of heel drops, on a step to strengthen the tendon and calf stretching, to take tension off of the tendon. I'll do three sets per leg until failure, followed by stretching the calf by dropping your heel. I do these following each ride. If you start now, this should protect you from any achilles issues on the divide. Pushing cleats back helps, my are full back. It only takes a couple hours before this new position actually feels better and I believe it's in vogue in the pro road peloton.

Ride to the divide? I live in cow town (Calgary). Last year I offered to ride with racers out to Banff. I have several routes on divide like roads, not the main highway. It's a beautiful ride and a nice shakedown. Last year a couple guys took me up on the offer. I think it would work best to stay in Calgary one night, then ride out. I was thinking Wednesday the 6th but earlier could be possible. Let me know.

[DocTrike]

My experience with Achilles tendon issues has always been cleat placement. I also have had last few years pain in knees so thinking it was my pedals I went back to toeclips and pain is gone. I checked with a biomechanics PHD/trainer friend and he said it is becoming very common with long time riders that don't have enough float in there pedals and more common with mashers like me.

So I am running MRP PowerStraps and took the big ring off my bike to force me to spin, I am now going faster with less pain issues!

[pbasinger]

 A while back, maybe last year, somebody had a link to snow levels along the route.  I can't find it searching through threads.  Anybody care to re-post that.

Thanks
P

[elobeck]

A while back, maybe last year, somebody had a link to snow levels along the route.  I can't find it searching through threads.  Anybody care to re-post that.

Thanks
P

Thinking about a divide run are we???
If you go to the TD leaderboard you can turn on a mpa layer that has current snow level info. There might be something better out there. But from on the ground here in Steamboat, there isn't much. Actually near record low levels and what is there is going fast. I rode Lynx pass yesterday and was clear of snow and bone dry.

[jryter]

Here is one I found from the Snowtel data... and Colorado is way low. ~55% for whole route now in the state.

http://nris.mt.gov/NRCS/snow/watersheds/ShowMap.asp?month=3&year=2012

[phil_rad]

A while back, maybe last year, somebody had a link to snow levels along the route.  I can't find it searching through threads.  Anybody care to re-post that.

Thanks
P

Pete, check this out: http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/earth/

Looks like a lot of snow up in Canada, hopefully it'll melt by June 8th.