Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

To sum up the ride -- I got my assed kicked. Woof. Dog tired.

Now, all of you can fuck the fuck off.

Welp, I got my ass kicked yesterday. For two sessions on Monday and Wednesday I finished first or second out of 17 riders by power points at CycleBar.

On Friday I got trounced and finished out of the medals in 5th. Keep in mind these are 25 year olds, most of the females and I'm 72. No senior benefits! I was dog tired after that.

So, today, I cycled at LA Fitness with no leader boards, kept my HR between 115 - 125 (that's low Zone 4 for me) by adjusting resistance and "won" v. myself. Great ride. Back to CycleBar tomorrow to see if I can actually win it ..... I remain pissed I got torched on my last ride there. I know why. I will adjust my ride tactics accordingly.

[AlabamAlum]

Hey Jeff, hello. How are you? I am well, thanks.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, I'm still taking nourishment and continue posting on pretty much a daily basis, the seriousness of them interrupted only by your silly jokes that I have no doubt in my mind are targeted.

It's also clear to me that both you, DSL and talent sit at your computers nearly continuously waiting for my informative posts and then taunt me about their length ignoring their import and the need for exhaustive detail. Even Wiz reads them recognizing, nay, honoring their quality by doing so "during one of his 2 hour shits."

For you and talent, though, to a lesser extent DSL because he actually asks questions about them and not at all pertaining to Wiz because he is a genuinely nice guy, I'm impervious to such blatant injustices.

hello

[iam416]

I think the increase in cases was inevitable with reopening. The question is how big is the increase.

Today, Buchanan, was 82 miles and it was hot at the end. I was officially cooked w/ 10 to go but still salvaged 20.3 avg.

[AlabamAlum]

Jeff,

Silly jokes? I offer only a respite from the Covid-19 and riot talks. Nothing more. I find Covid and the riots and the general state of things currently in America quite depressing. Take that for what it’s worth, but it’s honest and perhaps I do it for myself and project the need for said respite on others.

Take care.

Your Friend,
AA

[iam416]

The Rise of Dabo is most concerning.

[Da Geezer]

What is "The Rise of Dabo"?

[Jeff Buchanan]

AA, I like your jokes and appreciate that it relieves the stress of all the COVID and protest talk. It can be debilitating and has been for me in the past. I get relief by sorting through the crap opinions and focusing on unearthing the facts.

In writing about COVID I'm actually sorting through all the data and both lay and expert conclusions (opinions) in my own mind as a way of organizing it. When organized I'm better able to form fact based positions for myself. I then have this need to share them ....... something my wife appropriately roles her eyes about. Likewise I usually deserve the eye rolling from posters here. Good natured poking which, albeit on very few occasions, prompts brevity.

talent, I assume the 20.3 = mph. If so, on a strain gauge you're holding in excess of 200 watts on a flat road, no wind by my figuring from a chart I found that converts mph to watts (roughly). Impressive.

There's really no comparing indoor to out door cycling effort but there are some parallels. The weighted wheel on an indoor bike imparts centrifugal benefit to a rider. No idea how that converts. OTH, there's no benefit (or drawback either) to the impact of incline or decline that there is outdoors. I don't have to balance or steer. Indoor, the class instructors simulate this increased energy requirement of having to do that outdoors by incorporating jumps. I don't do these. I just turn up the resistance and mostly stay seated.

My best average is 150 watts. I'll generate 350+ in 2-3 minutes sprints but, I tend to drop too low and take too long on recovery (that's what I need to change - just keep the resistance a bit higher and train to make my recovery times shorter).

In a 45 minute indoor ride of approximately 23-25 miles, I'll put up 400+ power points. The class has sprints built in; I try to keep my RPMs below 120 and instead of sprinting I just turn up the resistance. I stay in the saddle more instead of standing as the seated position generates more power. All in all, 400 watts total for a ride is enough to exceed that of the group of the fit young females I'm riding with - usually 10 or so out of the group of 17 - by 30 power points.

Right now, in a moderately well conditioned state (age limitations in HR considered), that keeps me in my low Zone 5 and by my figuring just below my anaerobic threshold. I'd really like to see how I would do on a road bike in an 80 mile ride. At this point of fitness, I think I would fade at around 2.5h or a little over 40 miles assuming your 82 mile ride at 20.3 mph took around 4h. My training indoors is, by nature, focused on shorter rides of supposedly higher intensity.

By comparison, I did ride once in another studio with a class of 40 some split between males and females (before COVID). This was a fit group by how the leader board looked. I finished 15th with average power of 160 and total power points just over 420 ...... the leaders, 5 men and 1 woman, all racked up 500+ points. I haven't gone back to that studio!

[lineygoblue]

Greg Popovitch says he's embarrassed "as a white person" over the death of George Floyd and how the officer went about the arrest.

I am so tired of guilt by race. By his reasoning, all white people are guilty of what the officer did.

No. I will not accept that.

By his reasoning, shouldn't all black people be guilty of the double murder that OJ Simpson got away with? He brutally murdered two innocent people, one of whom was the mother of his children, sliced them up savagely, and left them to die in a pool of their own blood. Yet, to a lot of people in this country, he's considered a folk hero, because of Johnny Cochran's slick defense of him, allowing him to walk away scot-free.

I'm not guilty of the murder of George Floyd any more than I'm guilty of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

/// rant

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/nba/2020/06/06/san-antonio-spurs-coach-gregg-popovich-embarrassed-white-person/111916140/

[iam416]

I'm with you. It seems a little fucked up to say that you should be or are ashamed of yourself because of your race. But, whatever. That's where we are.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The US govt has formally requested that the UK hand over Prince Andrew for questioning related to Epstein

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-demands-uk-hands-over-22153995

[iam416]

Heh. That’s going to go poorly for him.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If it's getting hard to flesh this out for me, the folks aren't going to be able to do it.

FL has had five consecutive days of large new case counts. It looks impressive and of course it's being assigned to re-opening and the protests. FIVE STRAIGHT DAYS OF 1000 NEW CASES was the Sun Sentinel's Headline for Sunday, June 6th. There's a link to a page titled, "What Numbers We Should Watch" where some of the rate data, not all of it, is reported ....... that hasn't been updated since June 3rd. This is just sloppy journalism. I don't think there is political intent. Whatever ..... it's misleading.

Here's some calculation's I made from the states Public Health web site which has a lot of good data available for public consumption:

New Cases Week Ending 5/10 (1 day before re-opening): 4.3K
New Cases Week Ending 5/17: 4.8K
New Cases Week Ending 5/24: 5.3K
New Cases Week Ending 5/31: 7.4K
New Cases Week Ending 6/6: 8.2K

One Week after reopening % +s were 2.47%
Four Weeks after reopening % +s were 2.60

One Week After Reopening: 20,263 tests had been conducted the preceding 7d.
Four Weeks After Reopening: 57 ,082 in the preceding 7d

New Case # trends make things look bad, right?

However, there was a 50+% increase in testing during that period with only a 5% increase in % positives. This is a minuscule number of actual new cases adjusted for the increase in testing. I get why this kind of info is (a) not on the state's PH web site (I had to do my own calculations to draw the conclusion above) or (b) covered by the media. Too hard.

I feel confident that state officials are getting briefed on this and that is why the state forges ahead with re-opening but, man, officials open themselves up to massive questions about their strategy by not working to sell reopening with the right messaging. The criticism, which all the folks see on TV or read in the news papers, leads to a lack of confidence in government officials and unwarranted fears about stepping out.

Not a new rant for me so, sorry but this time the data has started to get good enough for it to back up what I'm ranting about. I suspect this goes on everywhere in states with big, densely populated cities and where the media wants a story. Disheartening when I'm reasonably certain that the circumstances in S. FL, which reveals things are going well here, gets drowned out by misleading info that says it's not.

[iam416]

Meanwhile, Minneapolis City Council intends to disband the police department. To each their own.

Really looking forward to every other D-controlled city doing the same.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'll tell you what prompted the digging above ...... we were in a restaurant for brunch around 11:30am today. We had gone there with a friend last weekend - excellent application of mitigation measures, staff excited to be back at work, patrons were courteous and mostly complying with distancing and masking.

Today was very different. The place was really busy. Tables were still properly spaced. Wait staff looked stressed by all the diners. Here were the problems:

• Broward Co. opening requirements for restaurants include masking when entering or moving around, e.g, to use facilities, until served, when finished with your meal and waiting for the check, when leaving. Less than 25% of the patrons who came in that I could observe masked appropriately.
• Patrons are supposed to mask and wait outside until a table is assigned. 3 groups (about 6 people and a small child) gathered in the entry way waiting to be seated - no masks.
• I asked our wait person if she knew that in Broward Co, restaurant patrons are required to mask and that a staff persons is supposed to provide friendly reminders to patrons to do that. There's also supposed to be signage advising distancing and masking. Her response was that she didn't think patrons had to mask. She did not know about signage.
• It is obvious to me that as opening proceeds and becomes less restrictive, more people will test the waters which means more people who don't care or are uninformed will be intermingling with people who do. There's going to be tensions - I could see it in the wait staff. I felt tension and probably won't go back there.

Fortunately, I had Ann, my wife, with me and she told me when I wanted to show the manager the county rules for restaurants I should "stay in my lane." Good advice and I did. But, I'm thinking in the moment we're not going to keep this thing in check if compliance with fundamental mitigation measures like masking and distancing is as bad as it looked to me today. Fortunately, the numbers don't yet suggest I need to worry about it and I SHOULD just stay in my lane and take care of myself and not worry about others. Hard.