What can I say?

My ego imagines there are some people wondering why I have missed a lot of the racing in the last 10+ weeks. Well imaginary people, it’s been one thing after another. The broken collar bone was pretty un-fun, but I worked through it. Then 3 weeks back on the bike doing base miles trying to get my lost fitness back and muster up a little something to be proud of at the end of the season. And I was starting to feel pretty good too. But then I started to get a scratchy throat. I thought it would be a few days off and then back at it, but man was I wrong. I spent the next two days in my bed, barely able to sleep. A fever the first night, and a migraine so bad the second night, I was incapacitated. So I went to the doctor really hoping it was just a bad case of strep throat. After a quick blood test and mouth swab, the doctor told me I had mono.

WHAT THE FUCK?!? Pardon the language, but seriously? I didn’t want to believe it at first, but then again here I sit, 2 weeks later and still feeling crappy. I’ve only had one more fever and 2 migraines, but that’s not the worst. I just want to race again!

But honestly what can I say. There is nothing I can do. I keep trying to think there is some reason this happened, trying to rationalize it. But there is no rationality to it, it’s just the worst luck I’ve had in my life so far. I keep wanting to believe that because this happened, I’ll have an amazing year next year, or that I won’t be sick for a few years or something. But who knows? If there is one thing I’ve learned from this it’s that I sure as hell don’t know. So you just have to take the good when it comes, and deal with the bad when it comes. All we can do it hope that bad luck doesn’t come our way, but that only makes us feel better, it doesn’t actually help.

As you can see, I’ve had some time to think, between sleeping all day and night. But that’s all I have to say about that…

Hopefully a slightly more interesting topic is what I’ve been doing to pass the time. Well, mostly watching movies and playing Warcraft. I cleaned my room, but it got dirty again. Maybe I’ll clean it again. But the interesting one has been looking at wheel and frame design on bikes. If you’re interested, I highly encourage you to look into it. I’ve found that it’s actually something of a science. Well, motorcycles are at least. But everything transfers over, mostly.

To sum it up, the bicycle is one of the most complex vehicles we as humans have ever invented. I suppose there is a reason that even after almost 200 years of existence, people are still fascinated by them. And with good cause, because we really have only just begun to understand how they actually work.

Take for instance how a person is able to balance on a bike. Some would say it’s the wheels. Because they spin, they create a gyroscope effect which makes the bike more stable. Some might say it’s the angle and trail of the steering mechanism. Well, almost. Some recent(ish) mathematical and experimental analysis has shown that it’s not the gyroscope or the trail. It’s as simple as keeping the weight over the two wheels. If you’re more interested, the article below is a report on this research where they created a bike which balances itself. It has wheels which have mass spinning both ways (to cancel the gyroscopic effect) and negative trail.

http://bicycle.tudelft.nl/stablebicycle/StableBicyclev34Revised.pdf

or for those who don't know math

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/26

So how do we stay up? By turning. Each time we turn it moves the center of mass and the front wheel in relation to the rear wheel and the forward motion. Think of this as like putting a foot out to catch yourself, except it’s your front wheel. Now do this motion very slightly and over and over and over very quickly and you’re balancing! Ever notice how people who are new to riding don’t always go so straight and more experienced riders do? Exactly.

Counter steer is another interesting one. It’ related to leaning in a corner. The bike doesn’t actually turn solely because of its handle bars getting turned. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. The bike gets the majority of turning from leaning. The rider needs to balance 2 things when turning. First make the correct radius turn and second staying off the pavement. To do this they use the bars and leaning to keep the sum of the lateral forces correct to produce the turn and to keep the weight over the wheels. This, more often than we notice, produces a handle bar direction opposite of where we want to go. If you ask me, that’s pretty amazing to think our bodies can do that.

There is a ton more to learn about it, and I’ll continue to read until I can ride bikes again without getting tired after 20 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics