Tour de France FAQ - A Guide for Newbies

Introduction

The 2024 Tour de France bike race is about half over, and presumably the most exciting stuff is still ahead. It’s been really good so far—at least, to me, a bicycle road racing afficionado. But what about the typical American sports fan, who doesn’t know a white jersey from an albino cow? That’s what this guide is for. Now, even if you already know all about the Tour, you should still read on, because the real point of this post is, “What’s funny about this race?”

2024 Tour de France Frequently Asked Questions

How do I watch the Tour de France live?

In America, you have to either subscribe to Peacock Premium ($6/month) or Flobikes (which literally doesn’t post any pricing—if you have to ask, you can’t afford it). Otherwise, you can use a VPN to pretend you’re in Europe and watch Eurosport. If none of these options appeals to you, you can watch highlights on YouTube, or (best of all) move to Europe. Then you won’t have to get up so early.

What does “GC” mean?

It stands for “good climber.” Kidding! It’s actually General Classification, meaning the overall race. The GC leader is the guy whose cumulative time, across all days of the race, is the lowest. Whoever leads the GC at the end of the final (i.e., 21st) day has won the Tour de France. For all those who aren’t in contention for the GC, the there’s the prospect of winning a single day’s event (aka stage) of the race … that’s also a pretty big deal.

What is a time trial?

In the time trial event, each racer rides by himself and his time is taken. It’s basically the same format as downhill skiing. The time trial is called “the race of truth” because tactics, psychological gamesmanship, and drafting don’t come into play. Frankly, I think these more complicated aspects of cycling are the best things about it; by that measure, time trials aren’t the true test at all. Moreover, I think mass-start downhill ski races would be awesome.

The Tour de France sometimes features team time trials. They are totally badass, featuring each nine-man team going alone against the clock. I wish TTTs figured in every Tour.

What are the special jerseys about?

There are basically three categories of jersey: standard, leader’s, and what I’ll call “other.”

The standard jersey is what almost everyone on a team wears (i.e., if he’s not wearing a leader’s or “other” jersey). It’s basically a billboard for the team’s sponsors. This is how this sport gets its money: through advertising, like with NASCAR. Otherwise there’d be no feasible way to pay all the salaries, since nobody has to buy a ticket to watch the Tour. If you’re lucky enough to live in France, you can just stumble out your door and wander out to the road to see them all go by.

Then we have the leader’s jerseys, for those leading one of the overall categories of the Tour. The yellow jersey, or “maillot jaune,” is what the GC leader wears. Then you have the white jersey with red polka-dots which is worn by the King of the Mountains (aka KOM) leader. You’d think this would indicate the best climber of the race, but often it’s actually not. It’s the guy who wins the most sprints to the tops of climbs and is awarded points for doing so. Obviously this guy needs to be consistent, but not perfectly; if he lost 20 or 30 minutes on a mountain day he’d miss the opportunity for more points on that stage, but could hang on to his overall KOM lead. Why is this jersey polka-dotted? Beats me.

Next is the Points jersey, which is green, and identifies the guy who’s most consistent in the races that end in a sprint finish, and for extra (“intermediate”) sprint opportunities along the way. This jersey is green because … money? I have no idea. Doesn’t matter. Finally, we have the plain white Best Young Rider jersey, for the highest-placed GC rider under age 26. This jersey is white because this rider is also required to be a virgin. (No he’s not.)

The “other” jerseys exist because of distinctions riders have earned beyond the Tour. For example, the winner of the previous season’s World Championship road race gets to wear a white jersey with rainbow stripes for the entire season, including the Tour. Also, many countries have their National Championship road race before the Tour, and the winner of each gets to wear his champion jersey, which often resembles the country’s flag. This can be confusing, of course.

Has a rider ever won more than one jersey?

Yes, it happens sometimes. For example, Eddy Merckx won all the jerseys on offer back in 1969. More recently, in both the 2020 and the 2021 Tours, Tadej Pogacar won the yellow, white, and polka-dot jerseys. Note that if a rider is leading in more than one category, he wears the jersey for the most prestigious one, and the next highest rider in the lesser category wears that jersey. For example, right now in the Tour, Pogacar is leading the KOM category but also the GC, so he’s in yellow while the second place rider in the KOM, Jonas Abrahamsen, is in polka dots. There are cases of one jersey trumping another as well; for example, in this year’s Tour, Remco Evenepoel wore his white jersey (for best young rider) during the time trial, despite being the current time trial World Champion. (No, nobody else wore the rainbow stripe jersey for that stage.)

I’ve heard announcers call the Tour a “chess game on wheels.” Is it?

Well, not exactly. In chess, only half a player’s pieces (the pawns) match one another in terms of what they do and how, while you’ve got all these other pieces that move in unique ways. Imagine a cyclists who could only go in an L-shaped direction, like a knight. It’d be ridiculous. Cycling is really more like checkers.

But in terms of the more general question about tactics and strategy, this is a team sport where most teams have a single leader (occasionally two), and the rest of team members are trying to help him (or them). And some teams aren’t even trying for the GC victory but only want stage wins, based on what they can realistically hope to accomplish. So they might have one guy who goes for sprint wins and another for mountaintop wins, and the rest of the team supports that day’s leader.

What makes cycling so tactical is that you can save gobs of energy by riding right behind another rider, or ideally a bunch of them. (If you wondered what I meant by “drafting” earlier, that’s what it’s called.) So a team’s job is to a) keep their star rider out of the wind, and b) force other teams’ star riders out into the wind. This is why riders “attack,” which means to sprint off to try to “break away” (i.e., get ahead of the rest and build up enough of a gap not to get caught by the end). In cycling, “attack” rarely means to hit, kick, or bludgeon. When that does happen, it’s usually hilarious.

What is a domestique?

A “domestique” is literally a servant. Per the teamwork discussion above, sometimes a domestique’s job is to attack other riders to “put them into difficulty” (to use a favorite term of the sportscasters’), but at other times their job is to ride back to the team car to pick up water bottles and then carry them forward to the star riders. They’re also around to offer up their bike if a leader’s is broken, or to pace him back up to the group if he goes off the back for any reason.

There is a documentary about cycling domestiques called “Wonderful Losers: A Different World.” It suggests that a domestique’s main job is to crash his bicycle. I’m not sure how this movie got to be so warped; perhaps they just had gobs of crash and first aid footage they couldn’t resist using. I don’t recommend this one if you are a cyclist with a significant other who worries about your safety.

The riders all seem to have hearing aids, or maybe earbuds. Are they music lovers, or deaf?

Those are the race radios, which keep the riders in constant contact with their team directors. The directors give them instructions, warnings about road hazards, encouragement, and sometimes recite poetry.

Do the directors really recite poetry to the riders?

No. Of course not. What gave you that idea?

It seems like the helmets are just getting out of hand. Is this some kind of joke?

I assume you’re talking about the time trial helmets, like this one:

These helmets, designed to confer an aerodynamic advantage, are no joke, mainly because they’re not funny. They’re proof that people will do just about anything to gain an edge, when their careers are on the line. I think goofy helmets should be banned, for the good of the sport. And yet, for some reason, the Union Cycliste Internationale (aka UCI, the governing body of cycling) has not asked my opinion on this. Shoot, I’d be the arbiter for free, just to be nice.

By the way, if the helmet above doesn’t look like it would even cut through the wind very well, bear in mind it’s designed for a rider who’s got his head down. With any luck, said rider would run into something and learn his lesson.

I guess the silver lining is that cycling helmets seem to work pretty well … maybe the NFL should try them.

Why are pro bike racers so dang skinny?

It turns out that humans can be pretty close to starving and still perform at a very high athletic level, if their nutritional needs are being met (e.g., balanced diet). The Tour de France features gobs of brutal mountain passes, and to be competitive every rider needs to have a very high power-to-weight ratio. So Tour riders eat as little as possible in training, so they come to the race extremely lean. They do eat a lot during the race but then they’re burning probably 5,000 calories a day.

Of course not all the riders are that skinny (except by the standards of other sports like baseball and curling). The sprint specialists, who go for victories in the flatter stages, are pretty muscle-bound. But they still have to get over the mountain passes, and within a time limit based on when the leaders finish. So, they can’t be as ‘roided out as, say, an American football player.

Speaking of which, do the Tour riders use performance-enhancing drugs?

Short answer: probably. Surely not all of them, and maybe not even most of them, but the sport will never be rid of doping no matter how much it claims to have cleaned up. I base this on current race leader Tadej Pogacar’s absolute domination of this year’s Giro d’Italia (aka Tour of Italy, similar to the Tour de France), where he won by an extraordinary margin while setting a new record for the highest average speed ever in that race. Higher, even, then in the years where infamous dopers like Marco Pantani and Ivan Basso were winning it.

Couldn’t this mean only Pogacar is doping? No, because he lost the last two Tours de France, and there are plenty of other riders who, on a given day, manage to beat him. Too many riders are putting up overly impressive numbers (that is, data points like average speed, power output, and the ratio of rider’s power to his weight, which many consider to be the smoking gun). Even the domestiques are turning out unrealistically strong performances.

All that being said, cycling is probably no dirtier than most pro sports. At least the footage isn’t embellished with CGI like in the movies, and all the riders do their own stunts. As long as the doping arms race doesn’t get too unbalanced, it’s still a fun sport to watch.

In the context of bike racing, what does “stack” mean?

It means to crash. All the road cyclists I know use this term (e.g., “Dude, I hit some gravel and almost stacked!”) but, oddly, none of the commentators ever say it.

Speaking of commentators, they keep talking about this or that rider “getting back on terms.” What does this mean?

I think only the Peacock commentators, Bob Roll and Phil Liggett, say this. It means “catch back up” or “get back into favorable position,” but nobody else on the planet uses this term. I think those two are trying to start a thing.

Is there an official anthem of the Tour de France?

No, but in 1983 Kraftwerk recorded a song called “Tour de France” and you can watch the video here. Although Kraftwerk is German, the lyrics are all in French. They’re not all that interesting, but if you croon along or sing this in shower, you can substitute this line: “An American will never win/ Tour de France, Tour de France.” That’s what I was doing in the mid-‘80s before Greg LeMond surprised everyone. Actually, I still do this. Force of habit.

What has been the highlight of this year’s Tour so far?

I would say the highlight so far was Mark Cavendish breaking the record for most career Tour de France stage wins, with 35 of them, at age 39. What makes this so special, at least to me, is that it came after a long dry spell. Cavendish failed to win a single Tour stage between 2017 and 2020, and many thought he was all washed up. Perhaps he’d become a bit jaded, kind of lost the hunger. I think a lot of us can relate, especially as we age. For example, another middle-aged superstar, Eminem, has rapped eloquently about this:

Man, in my younger days
That dream was so much fun to chase
It’s like I’d run in place
While this shit dangled in front of my face
But how do you keep up the pace
And the hunger pangs once you’ve won the race?
When that dual exhaust is coolin’ off
‘Cause you don’t got nothin’ left to prove at all
‘Cause you done already hit ‘em with the coup de grace

Miraculously, in 2021, Cavendish suddenly regained his form, and perhaps his mojo, and won a remarkable four stages of the Tour, picking up the green jersey in the process and matching Eddy Merckx’s record for most career stage wins. It looked like Cav was back on track and positioned to break the record the next year. Amazingly, though, his Deceuninck Quick-Step team director, Patrick Lefevere, didn’t put him on the team for the 2022 Tour de France, and in fact terminated Cav’s contract at the end of the year. While Lefevere didn’t really explain himself, it’s widely acknowledged in cycling circles that he’s is a vainglorious, narcissistic, power-crazed douchebag. (Note: by “widely acknowledged” I mean it’s my personal opinion.) I can imagine this was very inspirational for Cav, to come back and show the world what an idiot Lefevere is for not believing in him.

So Cav changed teams for what he thought would be his final Tour in 2023, only to crash out early before winning anything. I think all us cycling fans thought that would be it, but Cav decided to go one more year and take a final crack at Merckx’s record. Clearly, he put in all the work required—which is a lot, for a 39-year-old trying to beat the young bucks in pure speed—and his sprint victory in Stage 5 of this Tour was glorious. He lived up to the rest of Eminem’s rap:

Still you feel the need to go full tilt
That Bruce Willis, that blue steel, that true skill
When that wheel’s loose, I won’t lose will
Do you still believe?

(Does Eminem have any idea who Mark Cavendish is? Surely not. But Eminem doesn’t read albertnet either, so it’s all good.)

Belief came up in the post-race interview after Cav’s amazing win. The journalist asked, “But that makes you the best? That mindset—that mental strength that you have?” Cav replied, “It’s definitely a benefit, you know, especially when you’re not physically as good as everybody else.”

Do exploits like Cav’s—coming back from the doldrums, persevering, and achieving great triumph—cut across all sports, inspiring all of us whether we’re cycling fans or not?

Why, yes. Yes they do. And thanks for asking!

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Thanksgiving Invitation Template & FAQ

Introduction

I know how it is: you decide to host Thanksgiving, and next thing you know you’re on pins and needles wondering who will actually deign to show up, since nobody RSVPs anymore. (Or is that just my family?) Well, I know this may be a little late, but help is on the way in the form of this handy template for the official Thanksgiving invitation. This is useful even after you’ve issued the verbal offer and the save-the-date, in case your people need a reminder or a little prompting.

Of course you’ll want to tweak this a bit for your particular family situation; for example, if you’re all football fans but backing opposing teams, you can start the trash-talk early. Or, if all of your family get-togethers devolve into ruthless character assassination, you can make light of that. Here are some guiding principles for all invitations, before you proceed to the template:

• Brand it – this is more than a meal, more than a holiday, it’s an event
• Keep it light – for example, don’t make too much fun of the vegans
• Make it sassy – there will be plenty of cloying, sentimental speeches on the day itself so there’s no need to start now
• Make it firm – if you come off as too beseeching, you just look pathetic
• Provide actual information – even if this goes against everything you stand for

Thanksgiving invitation template

Hello all you family people,

I know this is really late in the game (though I don’t know what the game is, exactly) but anyhow, consider this your official invitation to TGV’23 at the Albert Headquarters in Albany! Please print out this email summons and bring it to show at the door. (If you can turn this guest authentication concept into a QR-code-driven thing, so much the better. Get your IT folks together with mine and they’ll set it up.)

As no other organizing principle presents itself I’ll make the rest of this invitation an FAQ.

Shouldn’t it be called TVG’23?

No, that was Uncle B—’s idea. I think he was referring to “TV Guide” though I can’t imagine why he thought that made sense. TGV’23 is not really an acronym, as all acronyms are passé.

What do you hosts need to know from me as you plan for TGV’23?

We need to know who all is coming (including plus-ones) and who is bringing the Bell’s seasoning. So far we think we have [list of invited guests goes here]. If anyone in that list is having second thoughts, dismiss them immediately.

Has the turkey been ordered?

Yes, which means nobody is allowed to flake. We ordered a very special turkey. We reserved it, in fact, before it was born. It was still in the egg. We met its parents. Since then we’ve supervised every step of its lifecycle, from its incubation (the mother and father taking turns), its early life (on a real grassy field, none of this fake plastic green grass like with an Easter basket), to its entirely hormone-free organic-grain-fed upbringing with plenty of opportunity to socialize. It is local, organic, fair-trade, and hopefully large enough.

Is lodging included in this deal?

L— gets dibs on the guest room (which she may still anachronistically refer to as “her” “bedroom”) and its magnificent new king-sized guest bed. If you’re nice she might invite you to a slumber party there. Other guests can fight over the legendary Bed of Sand down in the home office. Beyond that, we have a reasonable amount of floor space and two large sofas for those interested in the college-esque party-‘til-dawn experience, and if there are adventurous souls fancying a campout, we have flat (albeit stone) surfaces in the backyard and a large tent available. We would not be offended if one or more parties were to seek a motel/hotel/AirBNB/VRBO, especially given the relatively small number of bathrooms here (i.e., one).

I heard a rumor that the men are encouraged to pee in the backyard.

Yes, but only in the planting beds and the fountain. And please keep your micturition discreet so as not to scandalize the neighbors.

Does your new guest bed have a name?

Yes, we call it the Pound Cake Bed because the mattress is so much like pound cake, it’s tempting to take a bite.

Is there plenty of free parking?

Yes, we have a remarkable abundance of street parking. If your car is currently dripping oil, please notify us in advance and we will provide carpet swatches.

My car is a beautiful Dodge Charger Super Bee and its exterior paint has been polished, waxed, clear-coated, and festooned with glitter. Can I park it in your garage?

Our garage was designed around a 1927 Model-T Ford and can only accommodate a sub-compact car, and only then if we were to remove eight or nine bicycles. So, no.

Have all the  Albany Alberts been vaccinated?

Triple-vaxxed against COVID, flu-shots up to date, shingles vaccines complete, and screened monthly for cooties. No wonder we’re all practically autistic.

When should we arrive?

Wednesday seems reasonable. If anybody is flying, and the airfares are lower earlier in the week or something, well then come earlier!

When should we leave?

I reckon either on Sunday, or right after you break something but before the breakage is discovered, or earlier if you have to, or later if airfares go down or whatever. Just wing it, there are no wrong answers.

I am kind of new to this family and when you all get together, I can’t understand half the stuff you’re saying. What gives?

Fear not: I have put together this handy glossary of Albert-isms.

Will there be gravy?

Look, there are some things we just don’t joke about, okay?

Do you miss us, and are you super-pumped about this, and will there be lots of baking (e.g., pumpkin pie, apple pandowdy), and should Uncle B— bring his biking gear (cleaks, angry biker costume, and helmet), and will there be long hikes, and can people pursue their own activities as desired, and will there be leftovers?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and maybe.

Will there be dad jokes?

Does the pope wear a funny hat?

Was that a dad joke?

No. That was a cinematic reference. A dad joke would be more along the lines of “Two peanuts were walking down the street and one of them was assaulted.”

I heard you have a cat. Was it genetically modified to be hypoallergenic?

No, Freya was conceived the old fashioned way by a couple of strays. However, she has a subcutaneous RFID transmitter in case she gets lost, and because we added our credit card number to her online profile, we can use her as a mobile wallet. Ask for a demo! (As for anyone with a cat allergy, Benadryl is on us!)

Why do you use so many exclamation points?

Because I’m so doggone excited about TGV’23!!

If I’m honest, half the reason I’m even coming is so I can visit San Francisco with my plus-one. Is it a reasonable drive, and will my car get broken into?

If your car is a Prius, its catalytic converter will be stolen, even if you only park it out front of our house. But you’re in luck because with the local BART train system you can reach San Francisco in just 25 minutes, and the city is totally walk-able. You’ll have a blast!

How soon do you need to know we’re coming?

Oh, we already ordered the turkey, so you’re coming. You’re definitely coming. You better. But we don’t need any official total. It’s not like we have to pull permits or something.

Do you have any glue sticks?

As far as you know, no. We don’t need a repeat of what happened last year.

Will there be any strange, nonstandard dishes that will make me feel uneasy?

You mean like those weird tiny onions in the saliva-like sauce your ex-stepmother served? You bet! (Kidding! I never asked for the recipe, needless to say.) We’re sticking to the classics, mostly, though we’ll roast a couple of chickens (just to be “disruptive”).

Can we plan to burn off all those calories by hitting the malls on Black Friday?

Only if you really love window shopping. You probably wouldn’t enjoy actually buying anything here in Albany because have we some of the highest sales tax in the nation. (But it’s all good … I voted for that tax hike, and countless others.)

Isn’t the name, TGV’23, designed to summon the spirit of Train à Grande Vitesse since you love high-speed rail, France, and so forth?

Aha, you got me!

Well, I guess that pretty much sums it up. Please let us know if you’re coming, etc. and if you have any questions I didn’t think of.

Love,
Evil Uncle Dana

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

What Are Hospitals Like During the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Introduction

Today’s topic: what’s it like to visit an urgent care clinic right now, during the pandemic? What are things like at a hospital? And what’s it like to get a Covid-19 test? Unfortunately, I’m now in a position to report on all three.

I’m unable to type right now so I did something different: I recorded a vlog without having a script, and then transcribed the audio track using my phone. Please excuse whatever transcription errors I missed here.

Here’s the vlog version if you prefer that:

And now, with no further ado, the Q&A.

Why would anybody want to go near a hospital right now?

In my case, I had a pretty bad accident. I put off treatment for a couple days until it became clear that I needed it. Before I started making appointments I asked a buddy of mine who’s an MD, “Is this a really bad time to go to the hospital?” (Obviously he does this every day for work, and then goes home to his family.) He said, “You know, hospitals are really well-run: they’re kept very clean and they have protocols in place. It’s probably safer than a grocery store.” I agreed, and my wife made me an appointment at an urgent care clinic in Oakland.

Is it hard to get an appointment?

Of course this depends where you are, but in the Bay Area the hospitals etc. are really not doing much, as so many people avoiding these places. Getting an appointment was really easy.

Is the traffic lighter getting there, and is the parking easy?

Yes! Our drive to Oakland was done in record time. I don’t know about parking because my wife dropped me off—they aren’t letting visitors inside, you have to leave your patients at the curb. When we went to San Francisco for the second appointment (more on this later) it was even weirder because the Bay Bridge, which is normally, any time of the day, totally clogged up, was just smooth sailing. It’s kind of weird to see a city like San Francisco completely empty. I mean, normally there are horns honking, cars everywhere, people flagging taxis … in a more suburban area like Albany, where I live, it’s not that different from normal—you get more people walking but that’s about it. To see a major city seemingly abandoned like that is pretty eerie.

Is there a rigorous Covid-19 screening protocol before I can enter the building?

The first place I went to, I was able to go through the lobby and up the elevator on my own though they had a big thing of hand sanitizer as soon as you hit the lobby. At the entrance to the clinic on the second floor there was a guy with a table and he took my temperature and made me use hand sanitizer so he could make sure I’d done it, and he made sure I wasn’t obviously symptomatic before allowing me to proceed.

Will the person doing the screening make corny jokes to try to put me at ease?

Well, that’s going to vary but in my case the guy did. After taking my temperature he said, “Okay, 97.3 on your FM dial!” I wonder if he makes that joke with everyone. Actually though, it was pretty useful because if he said something like, “The New Alt: 105.3” or “107.7: The Bone” then I’d know I had a high fever, probably had Covid-19, and would be sent packing.

Do I bring my own mask or will they provide them?

I had heard they were going to give me my own mask but it’s kind of a Catch-22: until they hand you a mask you have to be wearing one. But after it’s been in the hospital I don’t really want the mask anymore, so I wore my skuzziest, dirtiest mask. At the urgent care Center in Oakland the guy had me switch it out and got me one of those cool rectangular blue ones that hooks behind your ears. I kind of wish I’d kept it but I pitched it with my old one. At the second place, the hospital, they were offering masks but I totally forgot to switch, so again I was wearing like my skuzziest mask, the one I’d dropped in the dirt, and wore it the whole time so I must have looked like some sort of derelict.

What social distancing measures will the doctors and nurses take? What kind of PPE?

Most of the time there was only one person in the room with me. Briefly there were two nurses in there but that was all right. The risk of infection, as I read recently here, depends on three things: your proximity; whether indoors or outdoors; and, how much time you’re in that proximity. If you’re closer than 6 feet from somebody, outside, on a trail, for like one second, you’re not going to give that guy Covid. So when I pass someone ten feet away on some trail and I’m not wearing a mask, and he looks over and scowls like I just sacked his ancestral village, I get a little testy. Two nurses in the room with me for two minutes at the same time, everybody wearing a mask … I’m not worried about it.

As far as PPE, the doctor wore a Plexiglas face shield, kind of like what a what a riot cop would wear but not quite as burley. It reminded me of the sneeze guard on a salad bar. So between that, and surgical gloves, and a mask, the doctor was well protected.

It’s actually kind of funny because my hand is pretty bandaged up and the doctor needed to check out my wounds, so she was trying to take Band-Aids off while wearing rubber gloves and she just couldn’t get anywhere. I was like here, let me help you out. How often do you get to help a doctor like that?

What’s the closest you had to get to anybody?

Obviously the doctor was right in there, dabbing with this very cool goop called MediHoney, which has some kind enzymes in it that kind of eat up the bacteria that might be growing the cuts. Kind of like putting maggots in your wound except smaller. So she was kind of close, but I not for very long. The most uncomfortable part was when I went across the hall to radiology. The X-ray tech had to position me with the backdrop and everything, and I say uncomfortable not because I thought he was going to give me Covid-19 but because he was asking me to put my bad arm over my head and all these other horrible things. That took a while too, but it was a giant room and he’d frequently scurry behind the control console to not get radiated, obviously.

How come every single member of the medical profession (except for the doctors) has tattoos now?

I don’t know why, but they all did, like, to a person, and one of the nurses had like this really cool tat on her forearm that looked like a face but it was like really well done. It was kind of distracting because I kind of wanted to say, “Wait, can you hold still for a moment, because I want to peer into the eyes of this person staring out from your arm.” But of course I didn’t want to waste her time or anything. Maybe this is just a value-add, you know … giving you something interesting to look at during your treatment.

Do you feel like you’re taking medical resources away from Covid-19 patients or people injured during protests?

Short answer: no. Again, there’s nobody in there, no one is scheduling elective surgeries right now. It’s just starting to get a little closer to normal but there were more staff than patients by a huge ratio. It was totally dead in there, just going through the empty hallways, like a ghost town. It’s almost like when you’re trying to support your small business so they don’t go under ... I’m giving this hospital some business. (Not that I would have chosen to, honestly.)

Do you think it’s in good taste to use terms like “dead” and “ghost town” under the circumstances?

Aw, lighten up!

Is the service really quick now, since you’re practically the only patient in there?

Oddly, no. I thought this X-ray thing was going to be pretty quick but I was there for hours. It was like usual: you’re seen by the nurses, then they leave, then the doctor comes in, leaves, comes back, then they’re ready for you down at X-ray, then you wait for those results to get sent to the doctor, then the shift changes and whatever and you get a new doctor, so I was sitting around for quite a while. I’m not sure why that is … maybe they’d sent too many of their staff  home.

Do they still give you a ridiculous orders like taking your shirt off well in advance of the doctor showing up so you have to sit there in an over-air-conditioned room for like 45 minutes shivering with no shirt on for no good reason?

Yes.

Is there any consequence whatsoever in completely ignoring the instruction to remove your shirt well in advance of the doctor actually showing up?

None whatsoever … I sat there with my shirt on. I’d planned ahead and wore a shirt with snaps down the front so when the doctor showed up, I popped down all the snaps in a row and whipped the shirt off in a jiffy. It’s important for patients to advocate for themselves.

Did everybody you talked to in both medical facilities ask you if you smoke or if you have ever smoked?

Answer is yes: all of them did. I got this question constantly, just as I did last time I was in the hospital for a broken femur.

Why do they ask this?

I’m glad you asked because I’ve posed this question too. The answer is, smokers just don’t heal very well from this kind of thing. Smoking doesn’t just wreck your lungs and your respiratory system—it stresses your entire body and puts it on the back foot no matter what it’s trying to recover from.  So don’t smoke!

Is it hard to schedule a surgery right now?

                                                                      

Hopefully you’ve never had to schedule a surgery but normally it’s a bit of a hassle, this little dance you do over several phone calls with the surgery scheduler whose full-time job is figuring out this puzzle with surgeon’s time so tight. But this was a piece of cake. The orthopedist recommended surgery, I agreed (I’m not going to second-guess the person who went to medical school) and he’s like, all right well, how about Tuesday?

Do they make you get a Covid-19 test before you can have an operation?

Yes, they actually will operate on you in a part of the hospital where there’s nobody with Covid-19, to limit any chance of exposure. So you have to get a test.

Is it hard to get an appointment for a Covid-19 test for an upcoming surgery?

Nope! Again, a piece of cake. They put in the order on Thursday and I got an appointment for Friday. So if you’re looking to get a Covid-19 test and you’re not getting any luck, just go get in a bad accident and injure yourself, and Bob’s your uncle!

Do you have to go to the same tent where all the symptomatic people are to get your test?

That’s a great question, because obviously you don’t want to be exposing yourself to the virus. Fortunately, they have a whole tent setup for asymptomatic people, which is pretty cool of them.

Do they really have a drive-thru Covid-19 test, and will they really serve you microbrews on tap there?

Two-part answer: yes, they really do have a drive-thru Covid-19 test, but no, they don’t serve microbrews on tap, at least not here. Maybe in Texas they’re doing that, or maybe in Oregon, but not in California.

That question about microbrews ... is that kind of a sore subject?

Yeah, it actually is and I wish you wouldn’t bring it up. Right now, in the days before the surgery, I can’t have Advil (as it thins the blood) so I have to take Tylenol, and I can’t have any alcohol with that because I care about my liver. So even though a lot of people are advising me to treat my symptoms with beer, I can’t, and I had to I had to give up a 32-ounce growler of Fieldwork IPA because it was going to go bad in my fridge. So that hurt, I think that hurt even more than my injury.

Don’t worry, the beer found a good home. The pal I gave it to later Beck’sted it from his patio.

Do they allow you to bring a pet in your car for the drive-thru Covid-19 test?

This is actually on my paperwork for the test: they specifically forbid you to bring a pet. If you have a pet in your car, they will turn you away, which kind of makes sense, right? Because if Rover is in the in the car with you and someone takes like this q-tip that’s like a foot long and sticks it so far up your nose you’re reminded of a sword swallower, Rover’s probably going to take action. Rover’s like, “Okay, that person’s killing my master—this is my finest hour, I’m going to save the day!”

Did you want to bring your pet to the Covid-19 test?

I have a cat. Needless to say a cat has never protected its owner so there’s no risk there. I probably could have filed the paperwork to have the cat registered as an emotional support animal, but only if they never met this cat. She’s useless. I’ve been laid up since Saturday and this cat will not get on my lap, will not even come around. It’s like I’m damaged goods, the cat is avoiding me like the plague. So no, I was not even tempted to bring her, not even to punish her, because she can’t change her stripes.

What was it like getting the Covid-19 test?

I was in the backseat of the car (I can’t drive right now) and somehow I’d been led to believe the person was going to get into the car but I think I must have been a little bit of a little bit confused. Instead the tester had me roll down the window and then she leaned in and first swabbed all over my mouth so needless to say I was not wearing a mask for this but obviously the tester was wearing a face mask, shield, the whole thing. Then she said, “I’m going to go up your nose.” And she sticks this thing up in there, gets it like an inch up my left nostril, and she’s like, “That one’s a little tight, I’m going to go through the other nostril.” I’m thinking great, what if this other one’s tight too … then what?

But the other nostril was apparently okay so she said, “This is going to last for 10 seconds,” and I’m really glad she gave me the countdown because it was weird, I mean it was like way in there, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had this happen where you’re eating pasta or rice so fast that you get a piece that goes way up in there so it’s stuck like halfway between your nose and your mouth and it just sits in there and kind of hurts, like when you hit a raw nerve with a drill when having a cavity filled without Novocain (which is how you should do it because it doesn’t hurt that bad) so it’s annoying and you’re thinking like “Oh god, I got pasta up my nose!” and then you get a Kleenex and you just blow your nose like super hard and then you feel the noodle bit flying out of your nose, when you look down you’re like, “There it is!” and it is just such a relief. So if you’ve ever had that happen, that’s kind of like what it’s like getting this Covid-19 test. They put the swab so far in there and kind of wiggle around and I’m kind of going “Uuuugh! uuuugh!” (but silently) and she’s counting, “All right, I got 5 more seconds” so I’m thinking “I can handle this!” and then it’s over. So, all told, we got there and sat around for a couple minutes while they did whatever and then from the time like the swab came out till I was done was like two minutes and then we hit the road.

How quickly did you get back the test results?

It was about 15 hours—pretty quick! They called me the next morning and let me know.

Do you have Covid-19?

No, I don’t. At least, I’ve tested negative.

Did they give you the antibody test so you can see if you’ve ever had Covid-19?

I asked about this and they said the antibody test gives so many false negatives (or was it false positives?), its accuracy rate is about 50%, so it’s just completely useless and they wouldn’t bother getting me that one.

If you test positive for Covid-19 do they still go ahead with the surgery?

I thought the answer to this would be no, they’d have to reschedule, but actually, given the severity of my injury, and since it’s not considered elective, they would move forward with the surgery even if I have Covid-19. They just would send me to a different facility where they have a “negative pressure” operating room where they can basically make it safer. I was kind of surprised about this and asked my doctor friend, who said, “Yeah, they should just operate, like why should they be so worried? They’ve got their PPE and this is the environment they work in; what’s the big deal?” I was kind of surprised … I was thinking it would be the patient at risk in that case. But I guess if you’re not showing any symptoms, it’s full steam ahead.

Would now be a good time to finally get a surgery for that chronic dandruff?

You know, as disgusting as my dandruff is—and it’s really bad, I’ll admit, it’s just a disgrace—I think I’ll wait until the pandemic is over before I go in for that scalp transplant.

More reading on the pandemic

• Shelter-in-Place FAQ
• E-Book Options During COVID-19 Lockdown
• Is Cycling Safe During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
• The Toilet Paper Hoarding Conundrum
• More COVID Chronicles – Baking in Place
• When Will the Pandemic End?
• How to Talk to Your Cat About COVID-19
• Teleworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Don’t The Dutch Wear COVID Masks?
• Travel Tips During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• COVID Wristbands

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—

For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

albertnet Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

Well, I’ve been at this blogging thing for over eleven years, and have posted more than 500 times. For better or for worse, that’s some traction. Now, I’m well aware that blogging is an audacious act. It takes a lot of cheek to assume that anybody cares to read what I care to write. (But if everybody erred on the side of modesty, nobody would write anything.)

As long as I’m being audacious, I’m going to assume that my readers are curious about how it’s gone, what’s working, what isn’t, and so forth. That what this post is about. (As a special bonus, a good number of these are real questions from real readers! And at least one of these questions has been asked at least twice!)

albertnet Frequently Asked Questions

How many posts have you written?

524, including this one.

How can I quickly peruse all the posts you have on offer?

Check out the albertnet index here. All my posts are listed and categorized, with the newest at the top.

It’s been said that your average post is 15 pages of single spaced comic sans text. Why are they so damned long?

The guy who said that was my (okay, our) dad [this question being from my brother]. That was his calculated figure. For a guy with a 170 IQ, Dad sure could be sloppy with his math. This supposed average post length was one of his excuses for not reading my blog; in reality the average post is more like 5 or 6 pages.

Okay, 5 or 6 pages is still pretty damned long, I’ll admit. I write that much because I can, because nobody is making me shorten my essays. If I wanted to write shorter stuff, I’d just be a journalist and get paid for this.

Have you ever met one of your readers in real life?

Good one. But that’s enough now. Bloggers have feelings, you know!

I did meet a guy at a party once who, when I introduced myself, knew my name already, from my blog. In fact, after reading my “Ode on a Double-Edged Razor”, he said, he bought an old-school Merkur razor just like the one I touted in my post. (No, Merkur didn’t pay me for this. I wish.) Full disclosure: I probably knew this reader already and just didn’t recognize him. I’m terrible with names and faces, and in fact I wonder if I might actually be face-blind.

At what point in the writing process of a post do you feel that you’ve met the goal, that you’ve “struck fire from the heart of man, and brought tears from the eyes of woman” (as Beethoven said of his music)?

Well, I wouldn’t say my goal is anything like that. (My mission statement is “Increasing shareholder value since 2009!”) I’d say my feeling of general satisfaction begins when I have that first rough draft complete and the basic bones of the post have been assembled. Then I know I have something, and I’ll polish it until I run out of time or figure I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. (Occasionally I’ll discard a totally finished piece, but that’s pretty rare. Posting an essay here that fails to strike fire or bring tears is—I’ll own it—a largely victimless crime.)

What blogs do you follow?

Well, I could list them, but there’s no point because five of the six have gone under. (One is entirely extinct, and the others haven’t had a post in three years.) The only active blog I follow is The Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog and I confess I don’t check it that often. Next time I’m in the Smokies I’ll be all over it, though!

If you don’t read blogs, why write one?

Fair question. The problem is, too many blogs are too specific. I have no particular interests, so why would I narrow my focus like that?

As far as other media I could try to publish in, that seems like a lot of hassle. Plus, I hate being hemmed in. I considered publishing my vasectomy story in something like “Men’s Journal” but they had some guideline like “Under no circumstances can a story run more than 500 words” which was a show-stopper. I cannot tell that story—and nobody could, not properly—in fewer than 2,000 words.

How do you manage to keep politics out of your blog? Do you ever want to just rant?

Honestly, I’m just not very interested in politics. Where I live, this topic strikes me as a pissing contest around who knows the most. To my mind, the differences among parties and candidates aren’t subtle, and we only get one vote, so I see no point in anybody devoting that much attention to them. Besides, why would I want to alienate half of my readership and attract a lot of hateful comments?

This isn’t to say albertnet never brushes up against politics, in a non-partisan way. Check out “Glutted by Campaign Signs” (a relatively popular post), “My Brief Foray Into Politics,” “Election Follies - A Proposal to Change Daylight Savings Time,” and “Election Follies – CA Prop 7, One Year Later.”

You have this incredible platform to spread important messages. What do you want all seven of year readers to know?

Ouch! Well, I guess I asked for it.

I don’t consider this blog a public service, and my goal is really to entertain, not so much to educate or inform. That said, I guess I could take a swing at a few life lessons you could read about on albertnet:

• Eat well
• Ride your bike
• Laugh a lot
• Read a lot
• If you’re a parent, be earnest about it

How do you promote your blog?

I don’t.

How can I provide feedback on a post?

You can leave a comment below the post, or email me at feedback@albertnet.us.

What are your top three most popular posts ever?

The most popular ever is “New Cycling World Record Set in Berkeley!” which racked up many thousands of pageviews within just a few days. I gather there are blogs with hundreds of thousands of pageviews a week, and good for them, but this was a fairly big deal for me.

My second most popular is “Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting A Vasectomy - But Were Afraid To Ask” which was one of my earliest posts. For many years, it carried the distinction of being the very first search result when you Googled “california vasectomy law.” (It’s not in like the first hundred hits now … a lot has changed in eleven years I guess.)

Third most popular is “Highbrow vs. Lowbrow,” also with many thousands of pageviews. I’m not sure exactly why it’s been so popular. I mean, I like it—I like all my stuff, or I wouldn’t post it—but it’s not like I poured my heart and soul into it. You tell me.

What are your three least popular posts ever?

That’s kind of a tough one, because obviously anything I posted quite recently hasn’t had time to accrue many views. To answer this one, I had to go back and figure out what posts have very few views despite hanging out there on the Internet for years. I did a rough calculation of how many pageviews per year I see among the loss leaders. Here’s what I came up with.

The very least popular is “London – Part Four,” which has received a grand total of 39 views in roughly a decade, for a paltry 3.8 views a year. Pretty pathetic! Why so poorly received? Well, anything that’s fourth in a series deserves what it gets. (You hear that, “Star Wars” people?) Also, this is one of the “bloggiest” posts I’ve ever done; it was back in the early days of albertnet when I thought it was enough to report on something interesting that happened to me (like a web log, you know). I’ve since decided that there ought to be a point to my posts and they should hang together better. Anyway, I reread this one and it’s actually not so bad … I chuckled a few times.

Next is “From the Archives – My First Cell Phone” with only 53 views over 10.5 years. I just skimmed it, and it’s really not such a bad essay … it’s just that it’s a bit too sincere and nerdy, without the good sense to be comic. But how could anybody know that going in? Anyway, who cares.

Finally, we have a short story, “Doctor’s Daughter.” It’s seen 50 readers over about 8 years. Pretty sad.

Is your blog mainly popular among Americans?

I wouldn’t say it’s mainly popular among Americans, because it’s not popular at all, duh!

As far as my audience, about 47% of my pageviews are from the U.S. Fully 16% are from Russia, and just behind that is the Ukraine with 14%. Isn’t it ironic that foreign enemy bots aiming to swing U.S. elections should be targeting a decidedly apolitical blog?

What do you most commonly blog about?

What a great question! I myself had no idea until I researched this a bit. It’s a bit hard to tell because many posts fit more than one category, but here’s a rough cut of the leading realms: 

• Polemics/opinion                                                                      108
• Bits & bobs (i.e., impossible to categorize)                            87
• Advice & how-to guides                                                             86
• Cycling – My first-hand experience                                        81
• Cycling – equipment, technique, & culture                           60
• Parenting                                                                                      59
• Cycling – pro race coverage                                                      56

Obviously if you add the cycling tallies together that would be the biggest category, but there’s a lot of overlap there. This truly is “a blog about nothing” [in particular].

What posts have occasioned the most comments?

I don’t get a lot of comments, except from bots, and I delete those as fast as I can. Here are my top three. 

• The most comments so far are for “Book Review – Cowboy Sam” with 18 legit comments (including my responses).
• Next is “Velominati’s ‘The Rules’ – Brilliance or BS?” with 11 comments (most of them highly negative).
• Third place is 10 comments for “New Cycling World Record Set in Berkeley!” (including a comment from the world record breaker himself, Craig Cannon).

What post got the most negative comments?

That would be “Velominati’s ‘The Rules’ – Brilliance or BS?” again.

Did you mind that?

Not at all. Pageviews across my blog went way up after that post. I think I got some new readers!

What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

My “Book Review – Cowboy Sam” post got this nice comment from the granddaughter of the book’s author: “Dana, I have to say that I enjoyed your post about the Cowboy Sam series. Very entertaining, well written and definitely brought a smile to my face! Edna Walker Chandler was my Grandmother and passed away in 1982. Her son (my father) passed in 2014 and I inherited copies of most of her books. Would you mind if I copied your post to my family history book for personal purposes only? Thank you! Celeste Chandler”

What’s the meanest comment you’ve ever received?

That would be in response to “Velominati’s ‘The Rules’ – Brilliance or BS?” with this acidly sarcastic remark: “Hilarious. I've have never seen the point of something missed by such a large amount, and then written about to such a great length. Bravo!”

What’s the angriest comment you’ve ever received?

In response to “The British Faucet Conundrum” I received this comment: “Tim Berners-Lee INVENTED THE INTERNET WORLD WIDE WEB AND HE IS BRITISH NOT AMERICAN... so stick that in your hat and smoke it. In typical fashion of most americans you try to take credit for most when you don't have a creative bone in your bodies.. give credit where credit is due.. not to mention the fact that you stole most patents off of the Brits when you decided to pathetically decided to pitch up for the tail end of ww2. thanks.. wankers.”

I got a good laugh out of that one. Plus, it brought about two other comments, both supporting me. At least one was presumably British, as he referred to the U.S. in the third person: “Tim Berners-Lee did indeed invent the world wide web, which is a system that runs atop the internet, which predates it. The Americans can quite legitimately claim the internet.”

How much money have you made from albertnet?

Let’s see … factoring in subscriptions, residuals, passive income, royalties, and referrals, that would total about … um … zero dollars. And zero cents. On a positive note, I’m supporting the US economy by paying for server storage space and all my domains.

Domains, plural?

Yes. Just in case would-be readers can’t be counted on to remember albertnet.us, you can reach my blog via danaalbert.com, danaalbert.net, danaalbert.org, danaalbert.us, albertnet.blog, albertnet.com, and albertnet.org.

Part of why I snapped these up is to prevent anybody else from creating an “evil twin” blog. I guess I should have grabbed the Instagram handle “albertnet” which is rendered on the site as “Альберт Нет.” That’s in Russian, which perhaps explains why I get so many Russian pageviews?

At least they’re cool photos, mainly of beer. (Kind of a neat coincidence since I like to blog about Beck’sting.) Maybe I would have that many followers if more of my photos looked like this:

So, if you aren’t making money, and you’re not famous, why continue blogging?

Keeping this blog alive keeps me writing, and that’s my main criterion for success. Details here.

What would you say is the most useful essay you’ve posted?

Probably “Family Internet Use Policy.”

What’s the opposite … that is, your most frivolous post?

That would have to be “From Farting Liberally to Liberal Arts - The Flatulence Files.”

Has albertnet ever gotten you in trouble?

After a careless motorist caused me to crash my bike and break my femur, I found a lawyer and looked into filing a lawsuit. He immediately asked me to disclose anything on social media that could jeopardize the case (e.g., by making me seem like a daredevil who got what he deserved). I coughed up several cycling-related posts including “Diablo Ex Machina” and “Death Ride ‘99,” both of which mention descending fast. These didn’t help my cause, but they alone wouldn’t have mattered, as I’d previously published “Five Seconds on a Mountain Pass” in the Daily Peloton, which concerned high-speed wobble.

(Ultimately, I didn’t pursue the lawsuit because the whole episode made me too angry. Dragging that anger over a long term and involving lawyers just would have extended it.)

I’m a bit behind on albertnet ... how long will it take me to catch up?

If you read a post a day, it would take you a little over a year and five months to catch up to today. But by that time, I will presumably have posted another 69 times, so you’d need another couple of months ... so, a year and seven months total. You better get cracking.

Do you ever do podcasts?

I’ve done 26 of them. If you’re interested, you can email me for details.

What’s the hardest part about blogging for you?

Obviously finding the time to write is a perennial problem, but what’s even harder is coming up with decent topics. (To the extent this post hasn’t done it for you, you can see the problem!) So, if you have any good blog post ideas, please send them my way!

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--

For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Olympic Spotlight - What is Curling? (FAQ)

Introduction

The United States just won the gold medal in curling for the first time in history. You might be wondering what this strange sport is all about. Well, I’m here to tell you, by answering some frequently asked questions.

What is curling?

Curling is a bit like a low-speed, two-dimensional form of archery, where big, uniform stones—or, to use the special curling jargon, rocks—are slid along a “curling sheet” (i.e., an ice rink) toward a circular target. But there’s a big difference: you can knock your opponents’ rocks away from the target, like the balls in croquet. Also, there are four people to a team, and a team leader called the skip, who yells instructions at the others. Plus, you alter the ice in the path of the rock with a little broom, which makes this sport unlike any other.

What is a bonspiel?

A bonspiel is a curling tournament.

Why don’t they just call it a curling tournament?

“Bonspiel” better captures the specialness of the sport.

What is “the hammer”?

The hammer is an abstract term indicating the privilege of “throwing” (i.e., sliding) the last rock of the “end” (i.e., inning).

What is “burning a stone”?

This is when a player accidentally touches a stone either with his body or with a broom. This is a serious infraction that often leads to a serious scolding. Players are expected to be suitably contrite when they burn a stone, and failure to apologize may bring about a second scolding.

What is “chroming the rock”?

This is when you strike a glancing blow off another rock that doesn’t move it much but changes the path of your rock.

Why are these terms so strange?

Curling is a badass sport and requires a similarly badass lexicon to describe it.

Is chroming the rock the curling equivalent of gleaming the cube?

No.

Is it true curling has been called "chess on ice"?

Yes, curling has been compared to chess by fans and detractors alike. Fans emphasize the strategy involved. Detractors claim that both sports are similarly long and tedious for the spectator. So who is right? Neither, actually. Because curling rocks are identical, one to the next, and can move in any direction, curling is actually more like checkers on ice.

How old is the sport of curling?

A curling rock was discovered in Scotland with the date “1511” engraved in it. How did archaeologists determine it was a curling rock? Well, they can’t know for sure, but these are experts and we ought to trust them. That being said, for years it was believed that a curling rock engraved with “302 BC” was the oldest—until somebody pointed out that—aha!—the BC/AD thing wasn’t invented until sometime AD.

There is also some speculation that curling has been depicted on the cave walls in Lascaux, but as it isn’t cold enough in Montignac for lakes to freeze, these claims are regarded with skepticism.

Does a curling sheet require a Zamboni?

No. In fact, a Zamboni would interfere with the sliding of the rocks. Curling requires the ice to have a pebbly texture. The lack of Zamboni has been cited as an obstacle to curling being more widely popular.

Who is the most famous curler in the world?

Effective immediately, the most famous curler in the world (or at least in the United States, which is all the world cares about, right?) is John Shuster, the skip of the American team that just won the gold. He is famous for being an American gold medalist, of course, but also for choking in key moments in two of the three previous Olympic Games. His failures in clinch moments were so dramatic, the Urban Dictionary includes the word “shuster,” defining it as a verb meaning to fail at a critical moment.

Is John Shuster fabulously wealthy?

Up until now Shuster has been just a part-time sales associate at a sporting goods store in Duluth. With this success, however, he will no longer need to practice curling and his manager thinks he can rejigger the schedule and move Shuster up to full time.

What about endorsement deals?

Shuster is well poised to be the public face of the premier curling broom manufacturer. Unfortunately, there is none, as there is no market for curling brooms outside of Olympic hopefuls (who usually get hand-me-downs from former Olympic hopefuls). It’s possible Shuster will get to be on the Wheaties box, but since he looks more like a factory foreman than a perfect athletic specimen, nothing is guaranteed.

Shuster’s fellow gold medalist Tyler George may have an opportunity to endorse Skechers. He he has worn the same pair of Skechers in training and in all his bonspiels in the last eight years, so they have achieved some fame in their own right. But according to the New York Times, these shoes have been called “revolting” by other Olympians, so perhaps it’s the wrong kind of fame. Meanwhile, nobody—not even Skechers—makes curling-specific shoes (curlers attach their own Teflon plates to regular shoes) and nobody wants curling shoes anyway, so again the endorsement possibilities are limited.

Is there a professional curling circuit?

There is no professional curling circuit per se, but many former Olympians go on to become professional janitors, given their prowess in wielding a broom and maintaining grace under pressure.

Is it true curling is the fastest growing sport in America?

Actually, that honor belongs to darts (though NBC falsely claims it’s Pickleball). Curling is tied with saltwater fishing for second place, though perhaps that is about to change!

What nation has the most Olympic gold medals in curling?

Believe it or not, the nation with the most curling gold medals is Libya.

Wait, did I say Libya? I meant Canada. They have fairly dominated curling, winning the gold in 2006, 2010, and 2014 before totally shustering it this year.

Is it true the US team was accidentally given the women’s gold medals in Pyeongchang?

Yes, actually. It is widely believed this was an attempt to embarrass the Americans—but if it was, it failed, as nobody is more secure in his masculinity than a male curler. The other theory is that this was a sly way to introduce them to the winning women’s team from Sweden (they’d visit them at the hotel to exchange medals, then head down to the bar, etc.). But America’s gold was already a Hollywood ending—they don’t need another.

Do you have to have facial hair to reach the top of men’s curling?

No, but it clearly helps.

Is it true that the curler is the most fit athlete of any discipline?

Traditionally, fitness is measured by two main criteria: VO2 max (oxygen uptake capability) and anaerobic threshold (the percentage of VO2 max that can be sustained before the athlete goes into oxygen debt). The highest VO2 max ever recorded was in Norwegian curler Thomas Løvold, with a measure of 97.5, surpassing Norwegian cross-country skier Espen Harald Bjerke’s VO2 max of 96.0.

It’s extremely difficult to measure anaerobic threshold, but if you’ve ever seen a bonspiel, well … the spectacle speaks for itself.

What do curlers eat?

Curlers have the reputation of being the most laid-back of Olympic athletes when it comes to diet—images of cheeseburgers and shakes come to mind—but this isn’t really fair. In reality, most curlers eat a lot of poutine—the Canadian standby consisting of French fries with cheese curds and brown gravy. If this doesn’t seem like the kind of nutrition befitting a top athlete, consider that modern versions of poutine often include things like duck confit and a garnish of arugula or even broccoli rabe.

Other staples among curlers are apparently eggs, steak, pancakes, yogurt, and cookies. These are the favorite foods of the “Garlic Girls,” the members of silver-medalist South Korean curling team who are the darlings of the Pyeongchang Olympics.

That thing about VO2 max – are you serious?

Actually, I just realized I goofed there. The 97.5 VO2 max belonged to Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendson. Curlers do seem pretty fit, though.

Note

Yeah, I made a bunch of stuff up. You should consider this more a humor piece than actual journalism. Wondering what is really true and what is not? Based on input from a reader, I have gone back and changed the font to show what is contrived. The black text with a serifed font is factually accurate. The texted rendered in a blue sans-serif font is what I made up.

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~--

For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.