Why Wordle?

Introduction

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not one for crossword puzzles, Sudokus, etc., and I’m certainly not looking for new ways to spend time with my smartphone. I’d rather create than solve, and as regards the digital realm my typical advice is to log off and do something useful. And yet, here I am, recommending the Wordle as a fun little puzzle and a way to (gasp) connect online.

What is Wordle?

I’ll save you a google search: Wordle is a word game you can play on the New York Times website. Every day they put up a new puzzle (i.e., a new word you have to guess). You can learn how to play in about 30 seconds and don’t need a subscription or login or anything. And because it’s the same word for everyone, you can compete with others.

Why I resisted Wordle

Here’s my introduction to the Wordle. My brain was very tired after a long workday when my phone, annoyingly, bleeped at me. At first I didn’t react. I couldn’t handle it. These stupid phones hector us all day long with all their notifications … such an intrusion. And yet, people seem to welcome this. It’s like those whackos who put ketchup on a hot dog.

After a delay—designed to convince myself I’m not my phone’s bitch—I swiped down to check the notification. Lo and behold, it was actually something good: a text from my daughter Alexa! “You ever try the NYT Wordle?” she’d written. “Seems like it would be right up your alley. We can compete to see who solves it in the fewest moves.” She followed this with a little devil emoticon.

I instantly recoiled. As I said, I don’t like puzzles. My only exception is the Jumble (i.e., anagram) in the newspaper, which I’ll do only because I can generally solve it in like 30 seconds (and if I get stuck on any of the words I just shrug it off and bail). Since the Wordle has similarities to anagrams, my daughter thought I’d like it. But “we can compete” is not necessarily an attractive proposal when coming from her … she’s a born competitor, and when we play cards she usually wins. Sometimes I’ll lose like two or three games in a row and think, what’s the point? Hasn’t it been definitively established that she’s sharper? Is this Wordle thing just another way for her to lose respect for me—to roll her eyes at the terrible toll age is taking on my brain?

I started to text my daughter back but got fed up with the tedious process of typing on my smartphone. “Maybe ugh h hmm if did it to to I’d fffd go to that position,” I texted. I was freestyling, roaming randomly across the keyboard and blindly accepting autosuggestions. I could not go on. I put my phone away for the night.

Upon reflection the next day, I decided I’d been rude, and to make amends I relented and tried the Wordle. Surprisingly, I liked it right away.

What’s cool about Wordle

Here is my first-ever Wordle result:

My first guess was a complete wash: all the letters in my trial word were wrong. At first it seemed like I’d just totally wasted one of my six tries, but actually, I was making progress: I’d ruled out two of the five vowels and two rather common consonants. I have to admit, the minor triumph of gaining useful information, even without the reward of a yellow or green tile, was refreshing given how often these days (in non-gaming scenarios) I feel like I’m just treading water.

With a game like chess, I never know how to proceed, but with Wordle I was able to continue making decent guesses based on a combination of logic and intuition. And, as you can see, I did solve the puzzle. Nowadays, with around thirty Wordles under my belt, I wouldn’t be pleased about needing five guesses, but in the moment I felt satisfied, and I hadn’t had to work very hard.

But the really fun part was comparing notes with Alexa. She took five tries too, and I got to look at her finished card and note her strategy. 

This is one of the other really cool things about Wordle: you “show your work.” It’s not like with a crossword, maze, word search, Bingo, or Sudoku, where all completed puzzles look identical. With Wordle you get a sequential view of how the solution was achieved. For example, Alexa used “MODUS” which is barely a word, in the sense that we kind of stole it from the phrase modus operandi which is not technically English. Obviously lots of words have such origins (e.g., café, alumnae) but really, when’s the last time you heard somebody use “modus”? Probably Alexa wasn’t hoping to solve the puzzle with this guess, but was testing two vowels in one go, which is smart.

The social aspect

As noted in these pages (here, here, and here), I’m not a fan of social media and texting. I didn’t even let my kids have phones until they were like 18, and my younger daughter still doesn’t use one. But it’s nice to have some contact with Alexa, especially since I’m an empty nester now, and the Wordle is a good excuse to check in daily, and a convenient method. A phone call requires both parties to be available concurrently, which is rare.

Try this with your college kid: send a text saying, “Is everything okay? Do you need anything? What’s new? Are you making friends? Getting enough sleep?” My guess is you won’t get much of a response. But the simple message “Wordle in 4” is either throwing down the gauntlet (if you’re first), or inviting your kid to compare her result, which kicks off a nice, easy dialogue. For example, looking at Alexa’s solution to that first Wordle, I noticed something in common with mine: we both tried “DOWDY.” I texted, “Great minds think alike, and so do ours, apparently!” This earned me an LOL, which is arguably the quintessential affirmation of our time. Which brings us to…

The MOULS files

On October 28, I got this Wordle result:

I was surprised by a couple of aspects of Alexa’s strategy with this one:

First off, she didn’t carry forward the E and A from her first guess. This ruined her chances of solving in two tries, but then how good were those chances, anyway? (More on this later.) And then she “guessed” MOULS, which is not a word. I mean, okay, it’s recognized as a valid Scrabble word, and Wordle accepted it, but what the hell? I’ve never heard it, and the dictionary app on my phone doesn’t have it. The prospect of winning in four moves didn’t seem well served by this entry. Neither did her next “guess,” SPANE.

Well, even though MOULS didn’t gain her much in this round, she tried it again a day or two later. I texted, “Mouls cannot be a word, can it?” This, combined with a random photo of our cat, kicked off a nice dialogue:

Thus did MOULS become a thing. A week or so later I crashed and burned for the first time, on the word PINEY, which seems about as abstract and non-wordlike as MOULS, but which Alexa somehow got in a mere three moves. I was devastated. Yeah, of course I recognize that this is just a silly game, with nothing hanging in the balance, but man … I just felt so defeated and low, especially when I compared our cards:

I complained, “You’ve got better mouls.” She replied, “Yeah, you’ve gotta embrace the mouls!” She tried to console me: “Well, at least you don’t have a year-long streak that got broken! Relatively early for a miss.” I replied, “Now you’re just rubbing it in.” She came back with, “Sorry, my intention is not to cause further mouls!”

I looked some more at my losing card and realized my last guess was really stupid: I’d put a D in it even though Wordle had told me there was no D. I had just been swinging wild, in desperation. I was also growing increasingly irritated at my own irritation. Why get all bent out of shape over a stupid game?

“No worries, the whole thing is just a pain in the mouls anyway,” I replied. What a useful catch-all word this was proving to be. And just like that, it’s entered our private lexicon. (Well, not entirely private: as Alexa has noted, her Autofill now suggests “mouls.”) A week or two later when I nailed a Wordle in three tries, she texted, “The mouls were with you today.”

Can the Wordle change us?

Some weeks into our Wordle dialogue, Alexa texted me with a discovery: “Did you know Wordle has a hard mode? You need to use every known letter in each word.” I replied that this is what I’ve always done anyway, risking the heartbreak of failure for the prospect of a better score (i.e., fewer guesses). So she switched over, with the eventual result that she crashed and burned—for the first time—on BAKER, which is one of these deadly words that offer too many possible candidates. For example, in this case you could waste a lot of tries on words ending in –AKER (e.g., FAKER, MAKER, TAKER). Ruling out several possible leading consonants with one “guess” (that wouldn’t, couldn’t include known letters) would be safer in this case.

But notwithstanding the end of her streak, Alexa came to embrace the riskier path that can lead to greater glory. I put forth that playing in the easier mode would be “like riding [your bike] up Wildcat when you could ride up Lomas Cantadas.” Alexa, who has suffered on both climbs, saw my point: “Time to go big or go home,” she replied.

Oddities

I’ve only been at this about a month, but I’ve had some fairly odd games. Look at this one: nothing but green.

And here’s its evil twin:

Victory lap

And finally, check this out:

How do you like them mouls?

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Cycling Spotlight - Stealth Training

Introduction

The term “stealth training” has been thrown around by bike racers for decades but perhaps hasn’t ever been formally defined. At the risk of diluting the intrigue by getting overly analytical, well … here I go.

The essence of stealth training

Stealth training, most would agree, is extra riding to get a leg up. Often, it’s done by a member of a team who thinks an extra workout here and there, done solo, might help him or her improve more quickly than his or her teammates. (A fellow blogger offers this description, which suggests that riding in the dark and/or cold is an essential part of stealth training. I don’t agree that it is.)

Of course everybody trains solo at least some of the time; where stealth training comes in is when you could be riding with your pals but aren’t. I was accused of this when I rode for UC Berkeley in 1991; every week I’d see a group of teammates cruising down Pinehurst while I was on the way up. When questioned, I explained I had to ride earlier due to my class schedule. This met with a skeptical “mm-hmm,” as though skipping class was no big deal; i.e., the real explanation must have been the idea of getting higher quality training on my own. (I didn’t, and had no illusions to that effect.)

Sometimes stealth training is simply a matter of tact. When I was at UC Santa Barbara I’d skip riding with teammates once a week when I had to do intervals, as I couldn’t bear to be around anybody when I did them. At first I tried to be up front about it, but others insisted we could all do intervals together and still get the job done. That lasted exactly one ride and then I went back to stealth training (i.e., “Sorry, I can’t ride Tuesday afternoons anymore … I have to work.”)

Sometimes stealth training targets friends instead of teammates. In high school, I started riding every day with my new friend Pete (whom I’d met at a bike race). We were fairly well matched (though he was faster). The problem was, Pete had formerly ridden every day with another friend, and when he three of us rode together, this friend just couldn’t keep up. Pete could have made some excuse for breaking off their arrangement, like something to do with his schedule, and then Pete and I could have started our own ride that met somewhere else, but Pete didn’t want to lie—at least, he didn’t want to tell that particular lie. Instead, he told his friend, “You can’t ride with us anymore because Dana doesn’t like you.” This wasn’t entirely false, but it wasn’t the whole truth, and sure wasn’t very nice. (In case you feel bad for the third guy, don’t worry: a few years later he came past me in the collegiate national championship road race, whacked me upside the helmet, told me to get a haircut, attacked, and soloed to victory. I kid you not.)

The funniest accusation of stealth training I’ve had was from the leader of the UC Berkeley team. This came the day after a road race in which I’d beaten him. I hadn’t intended to beat him. We had a guy up the road in a two-man breakaway, so we weren’t chasing. Toward the end of the race I figured our star could win the field sprint for third, and I offered him a lead-out. He was still sulking about having missed the break; he was one of these guys who thinks that getting third when your teammate wins is still losing. He turned down my offer, so I got a sweet lead-out from another teammate and won the field sprint myself.

When I encountered this team leader at the next day’s criterium he said, “So, did you go out for a little stealth training ride yesterday evening?” I was taken aback. What kind of idiot did he take me for—I mean, who thinks it’s a good idea to get in extra training between two days of racing? Moreover, he seemed irked by the idea, as if after beating him in one race I decided to totally overturn our team hierarchy via secret solo rides. It was bizarre.

“No, I didn’t do any ‘stealth training’ yesterday,” I assured him. He glowered at me. “Dana, I saw you,” he said acidly. Turns out he’d seen me riding home from my girlfriend’s apartment (still in my team kit, as I’d gone there straight from the race). It was just a misunderstanding, easily cleared up when my girlfriend vouched for me.  (Yes, this guy actually fact-checked me. That’s how convinced he was of my treachery.)

Fortunately, accusations of stealth training are usually given (and taken) more lightly. Here’s an exchange from an old bike team email thread: 

Ceely:  Anybody got tomorrow (Memorial Day) off? Wanna ride?

Lucas [early the next morning]: No riding for me today, enjoy.

Kromer: Look for Lucas doing stealth training today. Probably a double Morgan [Territory].

Lucas: Today that’s Dana and Craig, I heard they were meeting at Wildcat and San Pablo Dam Road at 5:30 this morning.

Can stealth training involve more than one rider? Sure, if a few are going rogue together. Did this 5:30 ride count as stealth training? Yeah, I suppose it did. Craig and I were training for the Everest Challenge, which means riding Mount Diablo twice, so in the interests of not taking the whole day (which would piss off our wives), we needed to make our ride “surgical”—i.e., minimal time spent waiting around for stragglers, latecomers, or people who think it’s perfectly reasonable to stop in Danville for coffee. By scheduling the ride at 5:30 and notifying teammates only by word of mouth, we kept the group small (i.e., limited to a select crew of complete nutters).

My favorite stealth training technique, back when I rode more with the team, was to do tons of hard winter riding on the indoor trainer so that, during the early season, I could miss several team rides in a row, then show up saying how out of shape I was, and hope to surprise everyone in the famous Walking Man sprint. (This almost never worked, by the way.)

Modern stealth training

The email exchange quoted above was from before everybody was on Strava. I’m not actually a Strava user myself, so I’m no authority on how it fits in with stealth training, but this article suggests that some riders will withhold posting some of their workouts as a stealth training technique. I polled my road team on this topic, and right away a teammate replied, “It for sure goes on!” He even named a local team that’s apparently fairly notorious for this. Another teammate replied, “I don’t post any ride where I maintain more than 500 watts for over 60 minutes. So I throw away a lot of rides.” I think he’s kidding. (Or is he?)

Of course, a lot of the value of Strava is that you can see how fast a rider has been going, and thus how hard he’s been training, even when you’re not able to witness it firsthand. This could help you spy on your rivals, but also makes you vulnerable to being spied on yourself. I coach a high school mountain bike team, and during a recent ride, I brought up the topic of Strava and stealth training to a fellow coach. As we watched Lincoln, our fastest rider, leave us in the dust, the fellow coach said, “To really throw people off, Lincoln and I should just trade Garmins at the beginning of the ride!”

Coaching and stealth training

As a coach, I encourage extra training because I hold practice only three times a week, and the more advanced riders ought to be doing more. Not all riders are comfortable hitting the trails solo, so a couple of times I’ve loaned a trainer to a rider who is coming back from illness or injury, to help him or her return to fitness faster.

Several times I’ve had an ambitious rider email me asking if he or she can meet up with the team but then break off and do a totally different ride (perhaps even a road ride) with another teammate. I ignore these emails, and explain later, “Look, if you two want to cut practice, and go do some ride I don’t know about, that’s fine. But the moment you show up for the team ride, I’m responsible for you, so no, you can’t go off in other direction where I can’t provide supervision or assistance.” It’s surprising how hard it’s been for me to get this idea across. What part of “stealth” do these riders not understand?

At least half of my team’s riders do extra workouts on a regular basis, which begs the question, why not just add another practice? The convenient answer is that it would be hard to line up enough coaches. Beyond that, it might make it harder to recruit new riders, who might not want that much training, thank you very much.

But there’s a bigger reason not to add another practice: I love the initiative that stealth training requires. Recently, on a non-team-practice day, I headed out for a solo ride of my own. Fifteen minutes in, I encountered one of my riders at the Summit Reservoir in Berkeley, a common cyclist gathering point, waiting to meet some others. I’m not sure how she arranged this, because she wasn’t sure who these other riders even were. “Are you the riders I’m supposed to be meeting up with?” she was asking. Another five minutes into my ride, descending Central Park Drive, I encountered another of my riders, hammering up the climb towards me in a small group from a rival team. Ten minutes later I came upon a fellow coach, riding solo. He is a relative newcomer to cycling, having picked it up when his daughter joined the team, and was no doubt shoring up his fitness to better keep up with the youngsters. How cool is that … four stealth training missions, all in one evening!

My enthusiasm here doesn’t just come from the obvious fitness benefit. My main goal as a coach isn’t to get top race results from any individual rider, or even from the team as a whole. My main goal is to turn these kids into lifelong cyclists. I love seeing my riders out there stealth training, partaking of the sport without being led along by coaches and teammates.

I’m especially stoked when I encounter a former member of the high school team, who has now graduated and gone off to college, putting in some miles while home for winter or spring break, just for the pleasure of it. When I see that, I know the program has done its job. It is my earnest hope that most of our current riders will bring their bikes with them to college and keep at it, even if they don’t have a team to ride with. Today’s stealth ride becomes tomorrow’s … ride.

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From the Archives - Brutal Bicycle Training Contest - Part II

Introduction

If you read my last post, you were left hanging, your interest (ideally) kindled about who ended up winning the 2005 Albert training competition. (If you didn’t read my last post go do that first.) This post provides the electrifying conclusion of the protracted, wrenching, ego-drenched battle between brothers. By way of review, the brothers in question are Bryan (at left in the photo below) and Geoff (at right).

Where we left off, I led the competition—after 362 days—by a mere 3.5 points over Geoff. To emphasize how close this was, that’s just 0.12% of my total score to that point. Geoff and I were absolutely neck-and-neck, and both already fried from three brutal weeks on the bike.

Thursday, Dec 29

GEOFF (before riding, and remember, he’s 9 hours ahead of Dana and Bryan): As I look over the [training competition] spreadsheet for inspiration, less than half an hour before I suit up for my final effort of the year, I feel a sense of doom, not unlike that feeling I had when Dad was going to spank the whole lot of us, and I was sent around to friends’ houses to round everyone up. I know I’m going to have to do great things here in the next few hours, and this causes my bowels to constrict with fear. I wonder what will happen... By the time you read this I’ll probably have posted my score. I hope it’s a big one.

GEOFF (42.0 points, indoor – 2 hrs 25 min): In an attempt to demoralize and crush the opposition, I have produced this score. I felt pretty good and decided to shoot for two hours above the [heart rate target] zone. After 1:45 above the zone, I just fell apart. I got off, caffeinated, drank apple juice, emptied my bladder and soaked my head, which got me through another turbulent five minutes, but then it just ended. My legs would go around in circles no longer. I threw in the towel and started cleaning up and warming down.

But then I decided to try again, as this is the end of the year, and climbed back onto the torture rack, made my best effort to turn the pedals around some more, but no, it just would not happen. I was knackered. Had the stuffing completely knocked out of me.

So there it is, 42 points. Dana, if you can top this effort, why, you deserve the win. Who knows though, maybe I’ll feel inspired on Saturday, and will get back on the bike. I doubt it though....

DANA: You bastard! I have no time to ride today and no energy anyway. But I’ve been checking the FTP site all day, waiting to see what you did, and fantasizing about a sub-30 score, the natural result of the fatigue that I hoped would finally catch up to you. But no, instead you get medieval on my heinie, you just shock-and-awe me, with this grotesquely monstrous score. You are a bad, bad man. D’oh. I’m already terribly dreading tomorrow’s hammerfest. It’ll be doubly painful given the obvious futility of my attempt...

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 38 POINTS]

[Here’s a photo from 2006, of the three of us studying our ride data together. We were data slaves long before Strava even existed.]

Friday, Dec 30

BRYAN [catching up from Thursday]: Man, Geoff! What in tarnation are you? The Terminator? Look at these scores! Look at the slope of that graph! Every stinkin’ ride is over 30 points! And getting back on after throwing in the towel, that’s heroic! But I happen to know that Dana’s out there right now, putting the hammer down, even as I sit here waiting for the next round of nausea and the next mad dash to the toolit to puke my guts out. I’m thinking Saturday’s calling your name...

DANA (40.4 points, indoor – 2 hrs 5 min): NO GIFTS.

BRYAN: Good grief, the mother of all mother scores! Look at that score-per-hour number! Only two hours, and an hour and a half of it above the zone! Well, this is certainly going to be a battle. NICE RIDE, DUDE!

DANA: Thanks! I only wish it didn’t totally wreck me. At the dinner table afterward, I was almost too tired to chew. In fact, I became too tired to eat before I was really full. I just couldn’t stay vertical another minute, and collapsed to the floor on my back. Even typing this note is a serious chore.

GEOFF: Well shoot, you certainly are an ornery little cuss, aren’t you? Man, 40 points. Now of course I have no choice, I have to ride again. I only hope I can do something great. Man, nice effort! An ‘A’ for effort! Of course you’re going to dig deep tomorrow and I just know that you’re going to pull ahead again, and that on New Year’s Eve I’m going to have to make myself suffer again, and that it will be in vain. Oh well, I’ve never been so close to the victory before. I guess that’s worth something.

DANA: If you had any first-hand knowledge of how badly I suffered for these points, you wouldn’t be worried at all...

[SITUATION: DANA AHEAD BY 2 POINTS]

Saturday, Dec 31

GEOFF (39.7 points, indoor – 2 hrs 12 min): Well there it is, my final effort. I somehow outdid myself. At the time, it felt as if I had given it all I had. Yet I didn’t fall off the bike. Nor did I have to crawl around afterwards, I was still able to walk. Shoot, my lips didn’t even turn blue. Now I’m feeling like such a wimp. Why oh why didn’t I stay on just another ten minutes? I could have shattered through the magical 40 Point Barrier.

Oh well, I guess I should be proud of myself. It was a near death experience, after all. At one point my eyes filled up with tears and overflowed for almost no reason. At another point my pulse sailed up above 160, where it stayed for what felt like an hour, though in reality it was only a few minutes. I was sure that I’d died and been relieved of my suffering, and decided that I’d stay on the bike for the rest of the year [i.e., until midnight]. Then of course my pulse plummeted again, and it was back to reality.

So there it is, almost 40 points. Will it be enough? Will age and treachery overcome youth and skill? Or will Dana pull it off yet again? We’ll soon know. The ball’s back in your court. Punish me, young man!

DANA (pre-ride): MAN! I’m so impressed, I can’t even bring myself to call you a bastard. That’s amazing! Look at that score-per-hour, right on the heels of your 42-point MegaTour! I’d also like to point out that you took the world record for score-per-month of all time, besting my 400.2 mark from 2003! You also got the second-biggest week of all time (second to your own record, of course). Now, I’m going to swing my leg over the bike today, but I can’t imagine I’ll have the strength to even begin to convince myself that victory is possible. You’ll know soon . . . perhaps very soon, if things go badly enough for me! Nice ride, dude!

BRYAN: What an incredible finish! I’d say that you really wanted this one. An incredible week, an incredible month, shoot, an incredible year! Nice work. We’re all very proud of you over here!

DANA (10.6 points, indoor – 1 hr): Today’s ride was horrible, but at least it was brief. That is, it took me just an hour (actually 59:45, which was as close to an hour as I could get) to ascertain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was no way I could score enough points to win. I’ve attached the final graph, because it tells a poignant tale. About 35 minutes into the workout, my spirits faltered and my pulse dropped to about 145. This angered me, and I hammered as hard as I could and finally crossed the [target] zone threshold. At this point I had all the grace of a fish flopping on the floor of a boat, being murdered with an ice pick. After about 90 seconds of this I was actually crying. I blew up, and my heart fell to just over 130.

I was getting ready to climb off the bike when I had my Tom Simpson moment. Remember, just before he died on Mount Ventoux, when his famous last words were “Put me back on my bike!”? That’s what I’m talking about. Reflecting on the absurdly short duration of my ride, and motivated by an equally absurd refusal to accept defeat, I decided to try to recover and go a bit longer.

And so, 48 minutes in I decided to try one more time to burst over the zone threshold, and (I foolishly hoped) somehow pin myself there [i.e., above my heart rate target zone—that is, redlined]. And as the graph shows, I actually did get it up there for awhile. When I finally detonated for good, which of course was inevitable, I decided to just keep hammering as much as I could despite the extreme, piercing, shattering pain. At this point I was uttering strange animal noises, somewhere between groans and screams but really more like yelps (given my lack of breath). And then something really strange happened: after maybe 30 seconds of this my heart rate began to soar. It got into the upper 160s and stayed there awhile, for about 45 seconds, and then suddenly I not only couldn’t pedal anymore, but couldn’t hold myself up on the bike. I crumpled into the handlebars and it was all over. Good thing I was on the [indoor] trainer or I’d have stacked!

So, not a great score, but it did get me above the 100-points-in-a-week barrier, for a personal best. It also got me above the prestigious 300-points-in-a-month barrier. It also brought my margin of loss down to less than a percent, which I have to be happy about. Best of all, it’s finally over.

BRYAN: Well shoot, Dana, my condolences. It was a valiant effort, I must say, as your last ride’s data attest. I believe you’re the better man for it, however, and I fear what you will do in the coming year. Did you realize that you shattered your previous total scores, as well as your best week? Very impressive...

GEOFF: Well Dana, your description of your final ride has filled my head with all sorts of thoughts. First of all, there’s respect and admiration for your grit and determination and your ability to torture yourself. My hat’s off to you! Then of course there’s the enormous sense of relief that you didn’t actually die trying. Erin would have killed me! There’s also the recognition of having been right there with you, having experienced exactly the same emotions. There’s a common bond here which I’m sure many people will never know. Oddly enough, I seem to be missing the thrill of victory. Maybe it just needs to sink in.

[FINAL SCORE: Geoff 2,941; Dana 2,914; Bryan 1,567.]

Final commentary

BRYAN: Gentlemen, nicely done. I am impressed and awed at your biking prowess. It’s a privilege to be crushed into oblivion by you.

DANA: I tried. That’s all I can say. Of course that’s not true—I can always say more. For example, nice job Geoff! I’m actually not that bummed about losing this year, because I lost to such a gritty opponent.

GEOFF: Well, I can scarcely believe that I actually won. I honestly thought it was impossible to beat Dana on the bike. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made this victory possible, including the artists whose music made it possible to dig a bit deeper, my parents for providing me a genetic gift for determination, my equipment suppliers whose gear stood up to the task, the promoters and producers of this great sporting event, and of course my unwavering fellow competitors, whose dedication and guts are an inspiration to us all. So, what am I doing after the celebration? I’m goin’ to Di’neylan’!

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From the Archives - Brutal Bicycle Training Contest!

Introduction

For over a decade, every year I held a year-long bike training contest with my brothers Bryan and Geoff, and sometimes a few friends. It started January 1 and ended December 31 and was a points competition. We didn’t race head-to-head, nor did we compare times (like Strava does). Instead, we used the data from our heart rate monitors to score each ride in terms of duration and intensity.

(Here’s what these heart rate monitors looked like … fairly primitive by today’s standards, though they did offer data upload to a PC so we could crunch the numbers. Yes, that 39 on the screen is my heart rate … I was much fitter back then, and this was at rest.)

Intensity was determined by each rider’s average heart rate, and what percentage of his maximum heart rate this average represented. The closer to redline a guy rode, the higher his score was, based on an accelerator applied to his base score; i.e., total score =  [duration]*[avg HR]*[accelerator].

There was also a bonus based on the amount of time spent with the heart rate over the target zone (i.e., more than 85% of the max heart rate). This meant that whatever part of your ride was at absolute redline earned you big bonus points. In a nutshell, you scored high by hammering your ass off for as long and as hard as possible. (Downhills and other periods of low-intensity riding were chucked out by a special software algorithm Bryan coded.) So the real total score = [duration]*[avg HR]*[accelerator] + [bonus].

We tracked one another’s scores closely via a shared spreadsheet we would trade around via FTP. The score per month and running total were displayed graphically. We commented on each other’s rides, cheering and jeering, and often going off into the weeds with stories of family life. Often we’d review and update the spreadsheet several times a day.

(Here’s a photo of Bryan, Geoff, and me taken in 2006, during a training ride for the 2006 La Marmotte cyclosportif.)

The contest of 2005 was particularly close, with the winner not determined until the final day, December 31. This meant we spent our Christmas and New Year’s Eve holidays pedaling like madmen. It’s a wonder our wives put up with it.

This post gathers up our scores and comments, with a pretty graph at the end, so you can read the amazing story of our end-of-year death march. (If you’re not that into bicycling, fear not: there are some great side stories about our kids barfing, which ought to pique anybody’s interest.)

A final note: Geoff lives in The Netherlands, so he’s nine hours ahead. This meant I sometimes knew his most recent score before I rode, but not always. Sometimes we didn’t update our scores right away (either due to time constraints or a backhanded keep-‘em-guessing strategy).

Training contest showdown – December 2005

Saturday, Dec 24

GEOFF (35.8 points – indoor, 1 hr 52 min): Dana, I’ve taken your [virtual] yellow [leader’s] jersey! How ya like me now?!

DANA:  (14.1 points – 1 hr 21 min, 21 miles, 2,913 vertical feet of climbing): Doggone it! I didn’t see a score for you as of this afternoon, and thought maybe you’d taken the day off. So I went out and hammered (as well as I could, anyway), thinking I’d be padding my lead. Instead, I lost it! I just didn’t have it today … too many hard rides already this month!

I’m going to have a hard time putting up the big scores this week because I can no longer ride indoors. We’re having the kitchen painted, and though the painters put up a plastic sheet, it’s been punched full of holes, and the fumes have filled the office [where I ride the trainer]. I considered riding with a gas mask down there but that would get mighty gross. So I rode in the rain today. What a mess. My chamois was like a thick soggy pancake by the end, and my socks weighed a pound apiece. To dry out my shoes, I stuffed inside-out diapers in them (for lack of newspaper). It’s supposed to keep raining, so this next week will be a real test of my gumption! And I’ll be in Sacramento for Christmas so I won’t get any riding done…

BRYAN:  Man, Geoff, nice ride!

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 19 POINTS]

Monday, Dec 26

DANA (17.2 points – 1 hr 23 min, 21 mi, 2,976 vertical feet):  D’oh! We didn’t get back from Sac until this afternoon. I’d hoped for a longer ride but simply ran out of daylight. Man, I can see the contest slipping through my fingers! I live in fear of the next Geoff Albert MegaScore. And I didn’t even get the lead back today!

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 2 POINTS]

Tuesday, Dec 27

GEOFF (32.6 points – indoor, 2 hr 1 min):  Well that was painful, but I’m pleased. Man. I was practically hyperventilating for the full two hours. It was one of those struggles to keep the pulse up. Thinking about the rest of the week is terrifying. Such pain, such misery. It will not be fun. If I weren’t such a coward I’d just throw in the towel and announce that I won’t be riding any more this year. But I can’t, of course.

BRYAN:  Well, Geoff, shoot, it looks like you’re poised to take away my score-per-month record and there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, you’ve earned it!

DANA:  (7.2 points – 1 hr 34 min, 20.6 mi, 2,920 vertical feet): Nooooooooooo! This was just what I was afraid of. I suffer long and hard to eke out another tiny advantage, and then Geoff comes along and obliterates it. [Here, I did my ride before seeing Geoff’s score, so when I went to post mine, I saw right away that he had hugely outscored me.]

That does it. I’m going to play this like a numbers game. No more strategizing about how much rest to take to feel best on training day. I’m going to have to ride every day, on the off chance that I’ll feel good. If I feel lousy, I fall off the bike and drown my sorrows in my own sweat. If I feel good, I go as long and hard as I can. Trouble is, tomorrow is my last day of vacation and I doubt I’ll feel very good, if today is any indication. Man, I’ve been on the sofa most of the day, between loads of laundry. My legs feel like they’ve been actually injured, like somebody shut them in a car door. Man o man. I felt SO lousy on this ride. I had big ambitions, too. I ate breakfast, mixed up two big bottles of Gatorade, two Clif bars, clothes for any weather . . . I was going to ride for hours and get a shock-and-awe score. I figured I’d finished yesterday’s ride with something still in the tank and would feel good. The horror! I just didn’t have it. I felt slightly less than mediocre going up Spruce, fairly lousy on South Park, and absolutely abysmal on Lomas Cantadas. There were times on that climb when my bike would come almost to a complete stop at the top of the pedal stroke. I went from intending to conquer the world to simply hoping I could limp home. Even my arms were tired.

In other news, just before bed last night Lindsay had sudden, violent bout of projectile vomiting. Her aim was uncanny:  she sprayed down a large pile of silk sweaters, fanned her blast over to our goose down pillows, nailed the down comforter and duvet, coated a bunch of clothing, and created a huge slip hazard on the hardwood floor. Never has such a small person created such a huge amount of laundry in so little time. Plus we had the bedroom windows open due to the paint fumes, so without that comforter I froze the rest of the night. I dreamed that I was riding with soaking wet chamois and tights. D’oh.

BRYAN:  You’ve got to love those little vomiters! Last night at the dinner table (our family has been afflicted to varying degree with illness) Jamey announced that she felt like she was going to barf. So we told her to go to the bathroom. Then we heard her heaves—they sounded like those of a full-grown man! That little angel hit the toilet with every blast, and there were four of them! So we tucked her in with her bucket. Poor little fellow, with her sheet-white face...

Last night Lydia was complaining of some serious stomach problems and today she’s hurling hard. She even threw up out the window of her uncle’s car, spattering all down the side of the car! This was in heavy traffic, no less.

GEOFF:  Good grief! I’m counting myself very lucky that I haven’t had to clean up vomit in a while! The last time was when Max didn’t make it to the tiled bathroom in time, stopping mid-stride to empty his system on the brand new carpeting upstairs. I couldn’t help but grin as I was scraping it out with a spatula, just like Mom used to do. I don’t know how I got the vomit patrol task, but I did.

DANA:  Speaking of Max, I chatted with him the other day, international long-distance, and bragged that I ate roll-mops [raw herring wrapped around a dill pickle spear] as my recovery food after a cold, wet ride. I was bragging, of course, but he unknowingly deflated my wimpy American swagger instantly by asking, “Was it yummy?”  It hadn’t occurred to me that a food that gives one (wussy American) man culinary bragging rights can be another (cool European) man’s (well, boy’s) delicacy...

BRYAN (20.6 points – indoor, 1 hr 3 min):  I’ll take it. It won’t help much, but it was a good ride, all things considered. It sure hurt to ride the trainer. I had forgotten how much suffering and drudgery it is. In fact, I wondered for a few minutes why I’m even doing this…

DANA:  Not bad! Your score-per-hour is stellar, as always. Did John work out with you?

BRYAN:  Nope, just solo. I think he was feeling a bit ill and went to bed early. It was a late-night ride. Now I’m feeling sick too! My belly’s all queasy and I feel like I should be puking, but I’m not—yet. Fine by me, but I sure didn’t feel like mounting up last night. I was hoping to ride every day through 12/31, but it’s not going to happen.

GEOFF:  You know, I’m feeling a bit ill myself. My head’s heavy and hurts, like one of those colds coming on. Of course it sure doesn't help that I only got five hours of sleep last night…

[SITUATION: GEOFF AHEAD BY 27.5 POINTS]

Wednesday, Dec 28

DANA (30.4 points – 3 hours, 47 miles, 5,975 vertical feet):  Boy, this one hurt. I psyched myself up as much as possible first, reading a Tour de France book beforehand while waiting for my NoDoz to kick in. I achieved some good time-above-zone early on, by suffering hugely, and then about halfway through I started to fall apart. Man. I felt every pedal stroke today. Each one was so hard, I was able to count them. There were 14,387. Oh, such horrible suffering. Every climb the Berkeley hills can throw at a guy—South Park, Fish Ranch, Claremont, South Pinehurst, Pinehurst, El Toyonal, and Lomas Cantadas. I’m glad I took the lead, but of course it’s another of those ahead-by-a-hair deals that will certainly be crushed out like a cigarette tomorrow.

I was absolutely destroyed at the end of this ride. Erin saw me come in the door and gasped at my blue lips. (It wasn’t that cold out; I think it was the problem I had after the 2003 La Marmotte, when my body was having trouble reoxygenating.)  Boys, you know you’re hurting when you have to sit down in the shower.

BRYAN:  Remember how I was feeling sick, like I should be booting, but I wasn’t? Well, I guess it just took a little while to come on, but boy did it! It’s like a hydrant! Wet cleanup in aisle 3!

DANA:  Dude ... what a grind!

[SITUATION: DANA AHEAD BY 3.5 POINTS]

To be continued…

For the thrilling conclusion to this barbaric, ego-fueled struggle, tune in to Part II, coming to albertnet on December 31!

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Fiction - Runner-Up: A Divorce Tale

Introduction

There ought to be a new literary genre (actually, it should be a classic, ages-old genre) called “divorce fiction.” After all, Barnes & Noble has an entire section called “Teen Paranormal Romance,” even though teen paranormal romance doesn’t often happen in real life (unless you agree with the guy who quipped, “I thought all teen romance was paranormal”). The divorce rate being what it is, we could use more tragicomic fiction in our lives, to help the many divorce victims cope.

And so, for that reason alone, here is a 100% fictional story I generated entirely out of my own imagination, with any resemblance of any character to any actual person—living, dead, or undead—being entirely coincidental. (“What? There might be zombies?” You’ll just have to see for yourself.)

Runner-Up – A Divorce Tale

See the poor kid painting. He is entirely focused. His home life is hard; his parents’ marriage is falling apart. Is painting a refuge? Is art the only way he can assert a satisfying level of control? Does he long to disappear into the strange undersea world he creates on the canvas?

No, not really. First off, it’s not canvas. It’s cheap construction paper. This is junior high art class. And he doesn’t fancy himself an artist; this work satisfies simply because no matter how bad he screws up, it’s still art. Who is to say he made a mistake? He could literally puke on the “canvas,” and it would still be art. In fact, puking on the painting would probably improve it. Or so he thinks ... his attitude isn’t very good.

And now he’s putting on the finishing touches. Not because the painting seems done, exactly, but because he doesn’t know what else to do, and hopes he’s done enough. But now Ms. Tincture approaches, and gasps. “Oh, Greg, I know just what you need to do to that painting—but I just can’t tell you what it is, that would be cheating! Oh, gosh, I hope you do the right thing!” He freezes, of course, and cannot add a single paint stroke from that moment on, terrified at forever ruining the first artwork he’s ever done that seemed to have any potential. So he screws around with Frank Frymouth for the rest of the hour, the two lads flirting awkwardly with Lisa Westgoober and her friend Wendy Wollrat, a girl who, by virtue of her massive chest, has earned Frank’s devout lust and admiration.

The next day, Greg strolls into the classroom quite casually. He has forgotten all about the state of his painting and its sudden, unexpected artistic potential. Ms. Tincture rushes out to greet him. “Oh, Greg, I’m so sorry, I tried to stop myself but I just couldn’t! I knew exactly what your painting needed and just couldn’t keep from adding the finishing touches! I’m so sorry!” He looks up towards the front of the classroom to see his painting on proud display, with a few subtle charcoal bands added which, frankly, improve the painting dramatically. Greg now knows he can’t get a bad grade on this painting, since the teacher is complicit in it.

The kid, you see, lacks the self esteem to be offended by anything. He lacks the idealism and artistic vision that might have made him take offense to Ms. Tincture’s intervention in his private work. He doesn’t ultimately feel the painting was ever his to begin with. And now, he is probably just glad to be rid of the awful responsibility of figuring out the final touches necessary to turn a class assignment into Art.

And so it feels slightly unreal to Greg when his painting wins a few awards, including a Hallmark nomination. His painting becomes a top-five finalist, and if he wins, he will receive a cash award of $100, which would mean a lot to him—it would enable him to be a big shot among his friends by taking them the U2 concert at Red Rocks in June. And, more importantly, the painting would be reproduced on Hallmark cards, albeit the small ones you buy in packages of fifty to send as holiday greetings.

There is a big awards ceremony in Denver. His mom drives him, and his dad meets them there. His parents seem just as proud as can be. But then, their divorce is on the horizon and they’re already preparing for the upcoming custody battle, so Greg has this unsettling feeling that the real competition isn’t among five paintings, but between Mom and Dad as they attempt to show him (almost for the first time) their loyalty and devotion.

Greg and his parents discover, as soon as they enter the hall, that he has lost the competition. The placement of the blue ribbon announces this ... nobody bothers to break the bad news gently. Greg is just another runner‑up. Of course he is. And of course this means no $100, no U2 concert, no cards to send to relatives for the next twenty years to show that that yes, a Halbrecht had actually made good, that you can brag all you want in your holiday newsletter that little Nathan is only six years old but is learning differential equations from his father, you can write all you want about your National Merit Scholar, you can send photos of your vacation in Greece, but it won’t change the fact that the Halbrecht newsletters this year are enclosed in Hallmark cards that bear a glorious illustration from their very own son. All this vanishes, just like any other mirage. He has lost. How typical.

Still, he was a finalist, and his painting is on display, behind a protective glass, with the other four finalists’. The judges comments are listed below, and the one that really stands out, in regard to Gregs’s painting, is this: “Poor quality paper.” Greg laughs. Not a loud, boisterous laugh, but a little pained chuckle reflecting the disappointment but also the real humor behind it: of course he used cheap paper—this was a school assignment, begun with the intent of satisfying the requirements of the course and getting a halfway decent grade. If he’d had the slightest idea it would be declared “Art” and entered in a contest, maybe he would have used something nicer. On second thought, he wouldn’t have, because he wouldn’t have believed it.

His painting begins to take on a new life as a doomed airliner, its pilot and copilot somehow incapacitated. Greg is cast in the role of the hapless passenger who is forced to try to land the plane (talked down by his teacher, the oddly calm air traffic controller). Of course the plane crashes and burns! Greg looks at the other entries with a strange kind of awe: these were done by actual artists somewhere ... student artists, yes, but good ones, who are confident enough to use high-quality materials.

Greg doesn’t kid himself: these other paintings really do outclass his; he wonders if the judges have given him the nomination as some sort of consolation prize. Still, he gleans a flicker of satisfaction from wondering if the judges felt his ocean-floor corn-on-the-cob had lent a certain reckless integrity to his painting.

See the poor kid leaving the hall and entering the auditorium, where his disappointment balloons dramatically: here he sees hundreds of thousands of other contest winners sitting there. Of course it’s not actually hundreds of thousands, or even thousands, but that’s the phrase that pops lugubriously into his head. “Among these hundreds of thousands of people I feel completely faceless,” declares the narrator silently. He sits right between his parents, of course, to serve as a necessary buffer zone ... a human DMZ.

He cannot look over at either parent without fear of alienating the other, so he can only imagine how they are experiencing this moment. Surely they are either bored, or distracted by their simmering rage at each other. Greg stares straight ahead, watching all the other winners, feeling less and less the nearly-triumphant artist, and more like a chance member of some vast horde. There are so many awards issued—“Man, they’re just giving them away!” he thinks. There are these certificates of some kind, Certificates of Excellence perhaps, and everybody gets one of those. Others, Greg included, get a Gold Key as well, but again, the numbers are huge. He is called up with the others to stand in a long line, to walk across the stage and collect the certificate and the little key. Seeing the table covered with the tall stacks of keys, each in a little plastic box, Greg feels something approaching actual shame. The ceremony ends without any special mention of the Hallmark nominees.

Now, of course, we come to the awful climax of the whole affair: who gets to take the kid home? Well, his mother drove him down, so it makes sense for his dad to drive him home. That’s Greg’s dad’s assertion, and it seems logical to the boy. But his mother isn’t buying it. He almost intervenes, but the spectacle of his parents fighting over him is just so novel. He doesn’t kid himself that he’s the point of the argument; power is the point, and he is merely the trophy. He finds himself paralyzed with morbid curiosity: how far will they go?

Just look at this poor guy. His stomach is starting to hurt. He finds himself buckling in the parking lot under this huge burden, wishing he’d screwed up the painting and could have avoided this whole ordeal. Finally, Mom says, “Well, Greg, if you come with me we have your Pink Floyd in the car.” He is unable to respond, afraid of insinuating that a rock album, of all things, could swing the balance in his mother’s favor. Finally his dad asks, “What is Pink Floyd?” Greg says nothing. He can barely stand up. His mother finally says—with a lightly superior air of teen-culture fluency—“It’s his favorite rock band.” To which his dad replies, “Humph. It sounds like the name of a pig.”

Greg drives back with his mom, brooding the whole way about how seemingly petty decisions like these, once compiled, can form the foundation of a profound estrangement. Will his father ever feel the same way about him again? And what was that way, to begin with?

* * *

William Faulkner wrote, “Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” And so, eight years later, with another ceremony looming, Greg’s memory of the Hallmark Affair begins in his gut—at first, as simple feeling, a pain that he gradually perceives as born of unspecific emotion, which then leads into a series of images, and eventually words. This all happens because Greg is trying to decide whether or not to attend his college graduation.

The vague process of knowing remembering believing is responsible for how much strain graduation puts on him. He considers some minor obstacles, like the thesis he still needs to finish, and the two final exams still to go. (If he crashes and burns bad enough on them, they just might make him a fraud, retroactively.) But that’s just an excuse and he knows it. The real problem is that—amazingly enough—his parents are still no better at being civil in each other’s presence than they were on that cold, grey day in Denver, fighting over (him) in the parking lot. He doesn’t want them at his graduation together, but if neither of them watches, why even wear the stupid hat and walk across the stage?

He could tell himself his father wouldn’t come anyway. After all, when Greg graduated from high school, his dad couldn’t be bothered to drive two miles across town to honor him. But this is different—this is college, after all. So Greg decides to take a gamble: he’ll invite his old man, but with very short notice. Exorbitant airfare just might carry the day.

See the young man sweat. He’s no good on the phone to begin with, and since his mom had gotten custody, relations with his dad have been chillier than ever. Stumbling over his greeting, his voice reedy, almost shaky, his barebones reserves of composure hemorrhaging alarmingly, he cuts right to the chase and gives his father the news, and the date. Less than two weeks away.

There is a long silence. What will his father say? He wasn’t even aware that Greg would be graduating. Greg pretends for a moment that his father is overcome with pride, but then has to stifle a bitter laugh. Finally his father says—and this is the first thing out of his mouth— “Are your mother and her husband coming?”

Greg, who is no fool, has seen this coming. “She’s coming, but only because Bruce has a running race in the area anyway.” Another long silence, and then his father, in the same grim tone, asks, “Is she taking you out for dinner afterwards?”

Greg doesn’t answer. He just stands there, staring into space. So it all hinges on dinner? Eventually he becomes aware that his father is talking again, something about a $3 million proposal, something about a deadline, something about plane tickets, and it sounds like his dad is declining. Which is a relief, but also a disappointment.

Look at poor Greg. He’s all bent over, his stomach roiling. Technically, he’s standing there in his little apartment, but he’s not there, not really. In his head he’s back in that parking lot in Denver, still clutching his stomach, still getting punished by a cold wind while his seething parents bicker senselessly over who’s driving him home.

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Strava By Night - The Next Killer App?

Introduction

Everybody knows about the upcoming launch of Strava By Night, ever since news of this top secret project was leaked to the Daily Peloton.  I had to wonder, though:  why all the secrecy?  On a hunch that Strava has been quietly working with other companies to offer tie-in products, timed to hit the market together, I began making inquiries within the cycling industry.  Surprisingly, my Rolodex served me well, and now—though I missed the big scoop that the Daily Peloton got—I can offer some small scoops on related products in the works.

But first, my questions for Strava

The first company I wanted to talk to was, of course, Strava.  They’ve been famously tight-lipped with the mainstream media about Strava By Night, but we bloggers have our ways.  To my luck, an employee with knowledge of the initiative opened up to me, cagily at first but ultimately with enough enthusiasm that I have started to wonder if media leakage isn’t just part of Strava’s marketing plan.

First, I asked the predictable question, why Strava By Night?  Why open up a special KOM category that requires a segment to be ridden after dark, when conditions are much more perilous?  The employee replied, “Right off the bat, this seemed like a compelling idea just because it’s so easy to implement.  We’re already getting very precise GPS data about these workouts, and it’s trivial to index a user’s longitude and latitude, and the ride date and time, to a static table of civil twilight data.  So the eligibility for the SBN leader board is easy to establish, and we can just as easily publish the SBN eligibility timeframes on the website, with daily updates, for each user’s profile.”

“Beyond that,” he continued, “we obviously needed a reason to do it.  We talk a lot in this company about KOM saturation.  If you live in Cat Butt, Wyoming it’s probably not hard to get some KOMs, for segments of just about any [elevation] profile.  In popular Strava markets like the Bay Area, though, high KOM rankings are very difficult, particularly for older athletes—who are our key demographic, by the way, because of their income.  There are too many pros snapping up all the KOMs and these less seasoned cyclists are starting to get frustrated.  So, downhill segments, rewarding cajones  and drive over pure ability, have served that clientele very well for awhile.  But even those KOMs are becoming harder to get as Strava users improve their bike handling.  Essentially we have a problem of a finite number of KOMs needing to satisfy what we hope is a practically infinite pool of users.  SBN opens up a whole new realm, where boldness is even more highly rewarded.”

But what about safety and liability, I asked.  His response was emphatic:  “Look, the law is very clear on this point.  Strava is not a content provider.  We provide the framework for the competition, but that framework isn’t egging people on:  it’s the end users throwing down the gauntlet by putting up those KOMs.  They are the content providers, not us.  It’s not our job to provide a working prefrontal cortex for these people.”

But wait, I protested:  won’t users  just label most downhill nighttime segments as hazardous?  “Yes, that can happen, and that’s nothing new, but obviously there’s a built-in fix for that:  somebody else will just create a new segment with slightly different beginning and end points, like they already do.  Of course too much of that can frustrate people, but the social stigma of ruining everybody’s fun is generally enough to keep these segments open.  It’s worth pointing out that traditional cyclists, the kind who get their jollies going fast uphill and on flats and only during daytime, will probably be big boosters of SBN even though they themselves won’t use it.  With SBN, these daylight guys won’t have as many Strava downhillers barreling past them all the time.”

Light and Motion

Next I checked in with various makers of bike lights, and hit pay dirt with Light and Motion.  A member of their product development group, Burt McClure, spoke candidly with me about an SBN offering.  “Yeah, we’re doing a new light.  We’ve done a lot of R&D on this and have actually ended up revamping our approach, for this one model.  Instead of a very small bulb designed to balance high lumen output with great battery life, we’ve gone in a kind of gonzo direction with a bulb more like what you’d get in a photocopier.  Burn time is only about five to ten minutes, and the battery is a four-pound beast, but we think most of these Strava By Night segments will be short, and since they’re predominantly downhill, weight won’t matter.  And the brightness?  This puppy puts out 5000 lumens.  You could see the shadow cast by a grain of sand.  It’s a very exciting product for a niche market.” 

Google Glass

Next I made the rounds of all the young dudes in Mission Street lofts and Palo Alto tree houses who create Glassware—third party apps for Google Glass—to see if they were doing anything.  (I’d started with Google but they blew me off completely.)  Mike “Mudguts” Brack, head of a startup called GlassGnar, has been working closely with Strava on a descent-themed app.  “It’s an amazing tie-in.  With our app, Glass syncs up more or less continuously with the Strava or SBN KOM leader board.  When it detects you’re on an established segment it begins tracking your speed and time and comparing them dynamically with leaders’ metrics throughout that segment.  It locates your leader board position and displays it in real time on the Glass (all nicely backlit, of course).  When your KOM position starts to slip, the display number flashes red.  When your placing improves it flashes green.  The app may even give verbal encouragement through a Bluetooth earbud, like quotes from great movies—you know, ‘Metal damage … brain damage … YOU SHOULD SEE THE DAMAGE, BRONZE!’  It will help these athletes identify the weaknesses in their descending so they can step up their game.  And psychologically—man, it’s like nitro in your air/fuel mix.” 

I asked Mudguts if he was worried about danger and liability, and he just snorted.  “But I’m glad you asked,” he said, “because you’ve got to talk to my brother-in-law.  When he heard of my app he started working on something of his own.”

Insurance

Mudguts’ brother-in-law, Don Bruce, Jr., works for a boutique life insurance company called The S Group.  “We’re working on a new policy,” he explained, “that is like secondary life insurance.  As you know, life insurance companies don’t like to pay out policies for accidental deaths that might not be accidental.  There’s a widespread belief out there, right or wrong, that when a head of household wants to commit suicide, but doesn’t want to leave his family penniless, he gets his pilot’s license and flies a little Cessna into the side of a cliff.  Such deaths get a lot of scrutiny, and Strava By Night may end up slotting right into that profile.  This new policy will only kick in when a traditional life insurance provider refuses to pay.  So if your husband dies doing Strava By Night, you don’t have to worry:  your family will be covered.”  I asked if this policy will actually be called “Strava insurance,” and he said, “I’d like to do that but obviously I can’t.”  Besides, he said, he’s imagining the target market will be slightly broader than just Strava or SBN users.

Garmin

And what about Garmin?  After all, cycling-specific GPS instruments are what made Strava possible in the first place.  Will they be building an SBN-specific device?  Not exactly.  A member of the product development team at Garmin, who spoke with me on condition of anonymity, described a new product, codenamed the Edge 910 SBN, that will serve what he described as the “nocturnal market.”  Though he was coy about the exact design intent of this model, he allowed that, in addition to a backlight that can be easily turned on and off, the device features a breathalyzer.  “This is simply to help the cyclist ride responsibly,” he said.  “There’s no indication at this time that Strava has intentions of creating any more new KOM categories.”  (He spoke carefully, but I think I saw him wink.)

Disclaimer

I truly hope you’ve grasped that this is a work of fiction.  No, there is no Strava By Night, and every single product, person, and concept mentioned in this blog post is purely a product of my imagination.