Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Stage 5 - Leg Breaker

Mommie! That’s what Elvis and his legs were crying for most of the ride today. 74 leg-breaking miles. The longest Stage of the Tour Challenge. Darn glad it’s over. Thank goodness Mike and The Boss were kind enough to join in for today’s activities. The wind was howling out of the northwest but good cycling buddies don’t let that deter them from helping out. Although they might think twice next time!

After meeting up we headed north and west to get the headwind sections over with. This took us through Newburg, Cheeseville, Fillmore and Beechwood. Curiously, a big Budweiser truck was sitting in Beechwood. I wonder if they drop their beer off for aging (Beechwood Aging?). This route also took us up and over a little section of road Elvis likes to call The Wall. The Wall is a terrible climb and the worst part is that you can see it looming miles ahead. It’s intimidating before you even get close. Hard on a normal day - brutal with a 25 mph headwind roaring over the top.

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The Boss and Mike staring down The Wall


By the time we hit the turnaround point we were wasted. 37 miles grinding into the wind. Sure, 37 miles of mostly tailwind was nice but with the energy already sucked out of our legs it was hard to enjoy much of it.

Elvis sure appreciates the efforts put in by Mike and The Boss. They did it because they love cycling and, I suspect, they love Elvis too. In that manly, don’t touch me kind of way. The feeling is mutual fellas. I could not have done today’s Stage without you.

Here is a typical Wisconsin scene that we passed today - tavern on the corner, silo in the background. And the slightly too clever name for the establishment.

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Say it out loud for the full effect, “Where the Fahgowee?” Good question.

Here is something interesting; Zipp has a new disc wheel; the Sub9 Tubular Disc. It’s a full carbon, full disc, dimpled, lightweight time trial wheel. But that’s not the interesting part. The claim that Zipp makes about it is interesting. According to Zipp, they were able to, “create the first wheel ever to show negative drag in a wind tunnel”. Get that? Negative drag. This would mean that by standing this wheel up on a flat road on a windless day it would start rolling forward on it’s own, like it was rolling downhill. This is not a breakthrough in cycling, this is a breakthrough in physics. They claim a -80g drag reading. Not that any of their potential customers have any idea what -80g of drag means specifically, but generally it would mean that this wheel would suck it’s rider forward. Better still, the more it rolled forward the faster the negative drag would suck you along. Put two of these on your bike and in a few minutes you would be setting new land speed records without ever turning a crank. How cool is that?

A guy could even use one as a generator for free electricity. Talk about going green. Imagine thousands of these churning out endless amounts of renewable energy. Somebody tell Al Gore about this. The horror of global warning is over!

Then the fine print; “At 15 degrees of yaw” this wheel showed the negative drag. 15 degrees of yaw means that the wheel is not rolling straight ahead, but is instead pointed 15 degrees to the left or right of the direction of travel. Elvis doesn’t think that this would work too well. Which begs two questions; 1) Why would you test a wheel under circumstances that do not exist anywhere but in a wind tunnel?, and 2) Why make a “negative drag” claim that in a real world setting is meaningless and non-existent? Elvis could not find anywhere on Zipp’s website the drag readings for this wheel when pointed straight ahead - the manner in which Elvis is likely to use such a wheel. I guess Zipp believes the old adage that a fool is born every minute. That probably tells us something about Zipp as a company.

zipp
Be sure to chain it down for storage or it will roll away

Today’s mileage goal: 72. Miles ridden: 74.


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