How to Select a Camera - Part 2

Introduction

In my last post I explained why it still makes sense to buy a real camera, notwithstanding (and partly because of) the sophistication of smartphone cameras. I described the main types of modern models—the point-and-shoot, mirrorless, and DSLR (aka “sand-filled”) cameras, and concluded that most (hypothetical) albertnet readers should probably go with mirrorless. In this second and final installment I’ll quote two experts in describing the technical differences in features among two models, and what these differences mean.

Advice from the mavens

My friend John and my brother Bryan take great photos (but I won’t be sharing their albums here so you’ll just have to trust me). Bryan got a lot of photography lessons from our dad (perhaps using up our dad’s patience since I never even got a real camera, much less a lesson, but I’m not bitter). I emailed John and Bryan links to my two front-runners, the Olympus PEN E-PL10 and the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV, and this handy link to a comparison page on the B&H Photo website.

John advised, “I think for Lindsay, finding a camera that ‘speaks to her’ rather one with the best specs on paper is the thing. I’ll admit that I bought Sony cameras because I thought they looked cool. And I think the PEN cameras are super cool looking too (and they are well regarded).”

This is a good point, and freed me somewhat from worrying too much about the specs … though I’ll admit I can’t resist sifting through the minutiae.

My brother Bryan took some time to walk through some of the more salient feature differences. Here are his observations, with my reactions and some other commentary.

Bulb mode

Bryan explains:

Bulb mode is where the camera keeps the shutter open as long as you hold the shutter button down (or perhaps by some other mechanism?). One uses it for making long exposures, so if that’s something Lindsay would like to play with, this might be a benefit of the OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. When might she play with such a feature? One thing that comes to mind is that young people these days love to take pictures of star trails because they’re so cool.

I don’t know about this one. Bryan might overestimate how much kids, or other people, are into astronomy. (Or perhaps he’s being facetious?)

Sensor size (resolution)

Bryan expounds:

Sensor Resolution of 16.1 MP versus 23 MP – Obviously, the OMG camera [his jocular nickname for the Mark IV] has the bigger sensor, which means higher resolution pictures, which means better zooming and cropping possibilities. It also means that if you want to make prints of your photos, they will look much better. It’s like comparing your old VGA monitor to your modern tablet with its retinal display. On the down side, these bigger pictures take up more space on your computer’s hard drive and so on.

I have read in various places that simply looking for high megapixel count won’t help much. That number can be high due to pixel density, but sensor size is more important. Assuming these cameras have the same pixel density, the more expensive one really does have the superior sensor. I guess it comes down to the old adage: size does matter.

Image Stabilization

More analysis from Bryan:

3-Axis Sensor-Shift verses 5-Axis – When it comes to making sharp photos, it’s all about holding the sensor still while the light is exposing it. You can do this with a tripod, by holding really still like a sniper, by buying lenses with active elements that move to absorb some of your shaking, or, like Pentax did years ago and other companies are apparently doing now, actively moving the sensor around to compensate for your shaking. The more axes the better... I’m not sure which axes the PEN camera operate on, probably x, y and rotate? The irony of course is that it’s the PEN camera that needs more stabilization, since it’s the one you’ll be waving around at arm’s length while taking pictures.

This is one of the main reasons I kind of think the bigger, clunkier camera might be worth it. Lindsay holds the camera fairly still but not perfectly … I kind of cringe at how much the camera is still twitching. Maybe that’s just me being a dad, though…

Electronic Front Curtain Shutter

Bryan writes,

I had to research this... apparently there’s a phenomenon called “shutter shock” where the mechanical clanking of the shutter mechanism (the mechanical curtains that hide the sensor until it’s time to expose it to the light) can shake the camera enough to blur the image at certain camera settings. It can cause what would otherwise be a perfectly sharp picture to be blurry when zoomed in, even when the camera is otherwise stable, even on a tripod. There are actually two curtains involved in covering the sensor, the front curtain and the rear curtain. The front curtain slides out of the way at the beginning of the exposure, exposing the sensor. After the set amount of time has elapsed, the rear curtain slides over the sensor, hiding it from the light, and the exposure is complete. Only the front curtain can cause the blurring, since the rear curtain’s movement comes after the exposure is complete. The solution, then, is to move the front curtain out of the way early and begin the exposure electronically, by starting the sensor read at the beginning of the exposure. (There are things I don’t understand about this, but that’s for another time.) Here is a good article, with a link to a cool movie that shows the curtain in action. All this to say, if she ends up really pushing the envelope, this might be a cool feature to have and learn about.

Wow, this is kind of amazing! You know what it reminds me of? That second set of eyelids that Vulcans have, that saved Spock’s vision in the “Operation – Annihilate!” episode of Star Trek!

Diopter Adjustment

Bryan writes,

This is the adjustment on the viewfinder to correct the image so that you don’t have to wear your glasses while looking through the view finder. Obviously, this applies only to the camera with a view finder ... more on this later. If you weren’t wearing your glasses, you might not make as good pictures because you can’t see what you’re doing, either on the screen or the viewfinder.

I have this on my Lumix point-and-shoot camera and I totally dig it. At this point, though, Lindsay is not very keen on the viewfinder … when she borrows my camera, which is frequent these days, she always uses the big LCD. Man, kids these days…

Media/Memory Card Slot

Per Bryan:

I didn’t research it, but the PEN camera only supports UHS-I, whereas the OMG supports UHS-II. Obviously UHS-II has two I’s instead of one, so it must be better. Seriously, though, the higher standard probably means that you could buy a faster card to handle the higher data transfer rates of the fancier features. Maybe it just makes the camera faster overall.

Bryan’s synopsis

Bryan completes his comparison of the two cameras:

The more expensive, bigger OMG camera [shown at the top of this post] is better in every regard except for one: it looks kind of like a big DSLR camera, and some people just don’t want to look like a tourist. I think that Dad got to that point, which is strange when you think about it. It looks like the cameras are actually similar in dimensions, the OMG is just five millimeters wider, but 16 mm taller and 10mm thicker. But the PEN camera is designed to look very stylish, and I believe that it does, and that could be very important to a young lady. I agree with John on this one: if she is embarrassed about the looks of the camera, she may never bond with it properly and it may just end up in a drawer, and she will have lost the opportunity to learn all about photography and make beautiful art.

If, on the other hand, she doesn’t care about the stylish nature of the PEN camera and is more moved by the sexy pretend pentaprism hump on the top of the OMG camera and all that it represents, then by all means, it is the better way to go. I happen to be a firm believer in the viewfinder for many reasons, some of which I shall enumerate. First of all, if you hold the camera properly while peering through the viewfinder, you will get superior pictures because they won’t be blurry from motion-blur. A professional photographer taught me this. I frankly can’t understand how phone cameras manage to get such sharp pictures when their owners are waving them about like pom-poms while taking photos. There must be some incredible processing going on there... in any case, holding the camera up to your face allows you to pin your arms against your body, which, being quite large, doesn’t shake around as much as your extended arms. This effect will be less with Lindsay, but the principle is sound.

I agree 100% with this, and by the way the phrase “pretend pentaprism hump” does more to sway me toward the smaller camera than anything else I’ve read, because it’s just so cheesy to build a cosmetic hump there, and while I’m on the subject, wouldn’t “Pretend Pentaprism Hump” be a great name for a rock band?

More on the viewfinder

Bryan continues,

Another reason that the viewfinder is superior is that you can see better. With your eye up against the camera, it’s dark in there and you can see the screen clearly. This allows you to frame things better, focus better (if you’re into the manual focus thing or are telling the camera where to focus), set the exposure better, check out your depth of field better, and so on. Though I haven’t really used one, I understand that the modern EVF (Electronic View Finder) allows for all sorts of extra data to be displayed in interesting ways. Some of these data can be displayed on the screen, but probably in less detail.

Finally, when it comes to serious photography, you just don’t see real photographers waving their cameras around, shooting photos like an action hero shoots a gun, holding one in each hand, with the barrels pointing away from each other, alternating bullets from left to right. Boy, that sure looks cool, especially if they’ve just flown through a glass wall of a skyscraper and they’re shooting and shooting as they fall, but real gun people don’t shoot that way, they hold the gun very carefully with both hands, arms extended, and they sight down the barrel so that their bullet has a chance of actually hitting the bad guy. Photography is kind of like that. If you want crappy, blurry shots, go ahead, wave the camera around. John and Erin [his son and daughter-in-law] take a whole lot of photos, and really good ones at that, and they use the huge, sand-filled DLSR cameras and they almost always use the viewfinder. There are probably other reasons for using a viewfinder that I haven’t thought about, but this has gone on long enough.

OMG, I can totally picture that movie poster of Chuck Norris shooting in two different directions at once, with his eyes looking at you, the viewer of the poster, rather than at either of his ostensible targets.

I have to admit, when I take a photo, I mean a real photo and not just a snapshot of my cat (for which I emphasize quick set up, kind of stealing the shot so the cat doesn’t see what I’m up to and stop being so cute), I do like to pretend I’m a sniper actually shooting somebody, and not like the bullet-spewing action hero but like a real freaking sniper, and I happen to know a bit about this because I have two friends who are super talented sharpshooters, both ex-military and one of whom had a job sitting up in the guard tower and shooting would-be prison escape artists at the California Men’s Colony prison. (He was never presented with the opportunity to shoot anybody, but the stress of knowing he might have to eventually got to him and he quit.) Both sharpshooters assured me that you almost never fire more than one shot, because a) the guns are so accurate you don’t need to, and b) if you actually sprayed bullets like in the movies the heat would warp the barrel. Anyhow, I guess with modern cameras and the capacity of these memory cards it’s reasonable to just flail the camera around like you’re a human semaphore or something, clicking away all the time, knowing that among the several hundred shots you’ve taken, one or two will be amazing, but man, I just hate wading thru all of those unsuitable photos, giving myself arthritis deleting them, since it’s always my phone or camera that the flailer (i.e., my wife or daughter) used and they leave all that photographic detritus around like so many plates and forks after a dinner party. Heck, maybe I like the viewfinder simply because I’d rather be a sniper than a dishwasher. Maybe it’s an ego thing.

The camera mavens’ conclusions

Bryan summed up his analysis with this:

All that being said, buy the camera that she will actually use. If she really likes the PEN camera, good on her; if she really gets into it but finds that she’s being hampered by the camera, because it doesn’t have a viewfinder or is missing features or whatever, she can always sell that camera (or hand it up to someone) and buy something fancier. If she goes all in, she’ll probably want to buy a full sized DSLR or whatever anyway. You never know!

John agreed and added:

The more I look at photos, the more I think that the tech is less important. I have two Sony APS-C cameras: one is old and has less resolution and no image stabilization and usually has my older, slower, crappier lenses on it. But sometimes that is the camera that is in my hand, and I tell you: I am still impressed at the good images I can get with it. Sure, the newer one gives me better assurance that I will get a good image in one setting or another, but a good photograph rarely has much to do with how awesome your camera is.

My ultimate choice

Obviously I favor a camera with a viewfinder for myself, but after all these emails I was leaning toward the PEN. After all, Lindsay doesn’t use the viewfinder on my camera anyway, and this camera is for her, not me. And getting back to that (probably hollow) pretend pentaprism hump … it just turns me off. Is this a camera, or a prop?

What clinched the deal is that I was on the B&H website, grabbing links for this very post, and noticed that the price for the PEN E-PL10 body bundled with a M.Zuiko ED 14-42mm lens had somehow dropped by $100 since the last time I visited it. This was (oddly enough) $50 less than the camera body by itself, $100 less than the price on Amazon, and now a full $250 less than the E-M10 Mark IV, which is enough to put a stake in its heart.

Surprised by the price drop on the B&H site, and thinking the price might go back up, I spontaneously snapped up the PEN E-PL10. After going through the checkout process I tried to get back to the original product page for it, and discovered—to my great surprise—that B&H has now discontinued this model entirely. I got the very last one!

I hope my daughter likes it. If so, perhaps I’ll paste some of her photos into this post. And if she doesn’t like it … well, I may just keep it for myself. My point-and-shoot is looking pretty humble right about now…

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

How to Select a Camera - and Why

Introduction

I have a perfectly good point-and-shoot camera but I’m in the market for a new one anyway—not because I’m a consumerist sucker, but for my kid. For her eighteenth birthday, she is very clear that she doesn’t want a smartphone (like her sister finally got), but a proper camera. Now that I’m up to speed on modern cameras, I’m ready to help you get there too.

“But wait,” you’re thinking. “Cameras are obsolete!” No they’re not. In this post I’ll explain:

• Why you want a camera (or should)
• The main types of camera (point-and-shoot, mirrorless, and DSLR) and how to choose among them
• Other arcana around viewfinders, sensor resolution, shutter speed, image stabilization, bulb mode, front curtain shutter, and why the most expensive cameras are filled with sand

Don’t worry, it’s not as boring as it sounds. Also, my typical ignorance won’t be infectious … I’ve consulted two actual experts and will quote them as necessary.

Why buy a camera?

It’s certainly true that modern smartphones take really great photos, and they’re always at hand when that perfect subject presents itself. Factually, most of the pictures and videos I get nowadays are from my phone. In particular phones do a great job with low light … they somehow make do without needing a flash.

The problem is, their tiny lenses tend to be very wide-angle, and often produce startlingly warped results. Case in point: I was having a beer with my boss a couple months back and he suddenly said, “Smile!” and snapped my photo with his iPhone. As I discovered later, he emailed the pic to our whole team … which would be fine except, being caught off guard, I was wearing a huge shit-eating grin. Okay, that’s on me, but even worse, the photo was totally warped so my head looked like Charlie Brown’s. My ears looked almost as far apart as my shoulder blades. I looked like a damn bobblehead. I’d totally post the photo here to prove my point, but it’s so awful I’m actually too vain. It’s bad enough for my colleagues to get a good laugh at my expense—I’m not letting you as well.

But here’s an example I’m not afraid to post, of my nephew and his grandma. Look at this, it’s like something out of Alice in Wonderland:

I’ve got lots of examples of these, from various modern phones.

I also have an issue with how phone cameras reproduce color. It’s not that they’re bad at it; it’s that the colors often seem “enhanced” by the software. I feel like we’ve reached the point where you can’t really trust these cameras—it’s like when you see a photo of a Big Mac and the tomato looks properly red, like the kind of vine-ripened tomato you’d never get at McDonald’s, and the cheese looks like plastic (which it probably is). Smartphone cameras and their associated apps seem more keen to please narcissistic Instagrammers than they are to produce accurate photos faithful to their subjects.

Here is Exhibit B, showcasing this software impulse toward brazen tampering:

I snapped that shot accidentally while cycling, and in the process I somehow invoked this automatic retouching feature where the camera suggested an enhanced version. It gave me a little slider so I could preview the “improved” photo, which as you can see fixes a number of flaws. The app evidently decided my skin was too pale and my razor stubble too unsightly, my skin too gooseflesh-y … in short, that I’m not attractive enough to warrant all the selfie-photo sharing I was surely about to do. So it showed me what my face is supposed to look like, if I were someone else … someone good. What the hell is wrong with modern society, other than everything?! And (more to the point), how much are these camera apps doing without asking us? I prefer a device that reproduces reality as faithfully as it can—you know, like an old film camera would do, and which modern cameras still do.

My daughter, who has the critical eye of an artist, has been borrowing my smartphone for years to capture priceless moments “on film,” and lately she’s grown more and more frustrated with it, and increasingly borrows my (albeit nine-year-old) proper camera instead. I can’t wait until she has her own, vastly superior to mine, so I won’t have to hunt for mine anymore. Plus, I’m excited to see what shots she will get with a truly fine instrument.

So what kind of camera should you get? Let’s walk through the types, in ascending order of price.

Point-and-shoot

In reality, almost all modern cameras could be described as point-and-shoot, in the sense that you don’t have to set the aperture, f-stop, shutter speed, or anything else, nor do you have to focus. Several times (pre-pandemic) I’ve been in a group of friends and somebody has handed me a super fancy Nikon DSLR camera and asked me to snap a group shot, and I’ve learned I don’t need to ask how to use it. “Just press this button” is all the instruction I’ve ever needed—or gotten.

So what point-and-shoot really means is “basic, cheap camera that doesn’t allow you to swap out lenses.” Point-and-shoots can be pretty sophisticated and/or expensive and can even be fairly bulky, with telescoping zoom lenses. My Panasonic has a 16X zoom, which is way better than the zoom on any smartphone including the so-called 30X zoom on my Samsung. (Phone cameras have so-called “optical zoom” which is more like cropping a picture than actually seeing farther.)

Since these point-and-shoot cameras have bigger lenses than a smartphone and (in my experience) don’t tend to warp photos as much, I suppose they’re worth buying … but then, if you’re going to carry around a whole extra device, why not step up to something even better, that solidly trounces a phone camera? Let’s look at the next category.

Mirrorless

I’ll bet you never knew your point-and-shoot camera had a mirror in it! Well, guess what: it doesn’t. So this second type of camera should perhaps be called “also-mirrorless” or “the other mirrorless.” Pretty weird, isn’t it, to define something by what it isn’t, or hasn’t got? Imagine if boxer shorts were called “strapless underpants.”

The mirrorless camera gets its name from the fact that the next step up, DSLR cameras, do have a mirror in them, like the (film) SLR cameras of old. (As if we all knew that, or cared.) The actual difference between mirrorless and point-and-shoot cameras is that the former generally have bigger sensors (more on this in a second), and you can switch around among variety of different lenses, which gives you something else to buy (in a good way).

So what’s all this about the sensor? Well, since cameras don’t have film to expose to light anymore, they have sensors, and the bigger the better. (You can spend $10K on a mirrorless camera, and its giant sensor is the main selling point.) The sensor isn’t the only important thing, though; you also want a lens big enough to let in more light. Mirrorless cameras have these traits, and thus are what the cool kids are using, I’m told. They take really good pictures (as my friend John’s photo albums would attest if I saw fit to violate his privacy by linking to them here).

DSLR

The digital single-lens reflex camera is the really expensive version that some people—that is, the ones who look down on us—simply have to have. (Single-lens reflex probably started out “single-lens reflects” but “reflex,” like all words with an “X” in them, seems cooler somehow.) All SLR cameras have a mirror and a pentaprism in them, so that whatever image the lens “sees” is reflected right into the viewfinder, aka eyepiece. Here’s how it works:

Does that looks fancy and sophisticated? Damn right it does. And that comes at a cost.

But what is the practical advantage of this? Well, two things. One, what you see through the viewfinder is exactly what the photo will capture. Thus, you avoid the “parallax error,” and though I don’t understand exactly what that is, it just sounds bad, doesn’t it? Next time you look at a photo and think, “Damn, that dude’s head looks like it’s about four feet in circumference,” you might be encountering a parallax error (unless it’s actually encephalitis). I’m not saying you are seeing parallax, since I’m not some kind of scientist or optics expert or anything, but I’m just sayin. 

Now, the other advantage of the SLR camera is quite simply that it costs more, and discerning people will not skimp. I mean, why the hell should they? Do you think James Bond would use a mirrorless camera? Hell no. He’d use a Leica. In fact he did. A real one, not just the Leica lens built into a point-and-shoot camera like mine, which is a sellout if there ever was one. (Could you even fit a mirror and pentaprism into a camera that looks like a bow-tie? Of course not, but then a wristwatch that shoots laser beams isn’t very realistic, either.)

So, if you’re the kind of person who must have a DSLR, the rest of the hairs I’ll split in this post probably don’t apply to you. You should just throw as much money as you can at a camera, preferably on a top brand like Nikon, and you can’t go wrong. Your photos will  be better due to the automatically superior features you’ll be getting, and higher-end materials, and because you’ll be surrounded by beautiful people who feel themselves automatically drawn to you … unless you’re on safari. Then you’ll get great shots because you’ll have a lackey supporting the four-foot-long telephoto lens you’ll be using, which enables you to peer right down the throats of mighty lions. You DSLR people can stop reading right here … get yourself over to B&H Photo and start shopping!

A final note on DSLRs: you might hear these referred to as “sand-filled” cameras. Believe it or not, this moniker was coined by my brothers and me. The origin is something famously said by our dad, who was a great photographer (though he had the annoying habit of using only slide film, so you could never see his pictures unless he did a slide show, but he was too cheap to buy multiple carousels so he would have to load each set sequentially so the shows took hours, thus he almost never did them, and I have thousands of slides we’ve never seen before, which I only discovered after his death and which are now in my garage waiting to be digitized). He was all into the classic old-school SLR cameras that take different lenses, etc., and teaching my brothers how to use them (but not teaching me, as he was too disgusted by my brothers’ stupidity and/or was insufficiently confident I could learn and/or simply got bored of parenting). Oddly enough, at some point during his retirement he suddenly turned his back on the classic technology and took to poo-pooing DSLRs. He was talking to Bryan and me once (as I recall, Bryan had his pride and joy, a Pentax DSLR, hanging around his neck at the time, and if our dad had been better read he’d have compared it to an albatross, à la “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) and he (Dad) scoffed, “There’s no reason these fancy DSLR cameras need to be so big and heavy. It’s obvious that the marketing people got involved and influenced the design teams, just to fool all these consumers into thinking there’s something special about these giant cameras. They’re probably full of sand.”

How to choose among mirrorless cameras

O gosh, you could go crazy researching this stuff. When purchasing anything, I have a tendency to narrow down my investigation to just a couple of brands, right off the bat. And how do I filter out the others? Well, there are luxury brands (e.g., Leica, Nikon) that probably aren’t a good value. And then there are obscure ones (e.g., Paper Shoot, HamiltonBuhl) that seem like a gamble. Then there are brands known for other products (e.g., Vivitar, HP) which would be like buying Ralph Lauren housewares or Porsche sunglasses (lame!). So if you have any brand loyalties, like to an old school camera you had in the past, start there. And if some friend you trust has a recommendation, don’t ignore it.

My first digital camera was an Olympus, which I bought back in 2001, when digital cameras were fairly new technology—new enough, in fact, that I bought mine at The Sharper Image. It was $750, and the memory card (which might hold up to one modern photo) was probably at least another $50. It would be easy to take shots at that camera (sorry, pun intended) based on how primitive it seems by modern standards, but it actually took some really great photos, like this one:

When it was time to replace it I had gobs of choices and a friend recommended a Panasonic Lumix, with the Leica lens I mentioned earlier. I took his advice and since then I had several of these; between me and my kids we have tended to drop (and thus break) them.

Her ageing father’s brand loyalty aside, my daughter had her eye on an Olympus PEN mirrorless like her friend has, and when I started looking I realized that, while most mirrorless camera brands will only take their own lenses, there’s one exception: Olympus and Panasonic lenses are interoperable. That seems pretty cool to me, given my luck with both brands. Plus, I was looking for an excuse to settle on a single brand, so Olympus it is.

Of course, you have to choose among the models available, and that’s where the B&H Photo website is pretty handy, with their Compare feature. (Yes, other websites have this too, but they don’t do a very good job with it.) Poring over the differences is a fun rabbit hole to go down—almost as fun as Alice’s descent into Wonderland (“curiouser and curiouser!”). Consider this comparison of the Olympus PEN E-PL10 vs. the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. There, side by side, are all the technical specifications so you can totally geek out.

But what if you’re not a camera geek? That’s when you have to call on a friend or two … and surely you have at least one friend who’s a camera maven? This is what I did, with my friend John and my brother Bryan offering great advice.

Ah, but I see I’ve run a bit long here. I’ll save the rest of this post for next week. Check back because I’ll go into bulb mode, sensor size/resolution, image stabilization, front curtain shutter, and the all-important viewfinder…

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Ride Report - DIY Everest Challenge

Introduction

I just realized 2021 is the first year since 2007 during which I haven’t done a single bike race. That’s a shame. Worst of all, I haven’t done the Everest Challenge since 2014 … but then, it’s no longer being held. The good news is, it’s possible to suffer in those same mountains with none of the competition, and none of the support. A couple of East Bay Velo Club pals and I pioneered this approach four years ago with our “Almost Death Ride” and repeated the trick recently by mounting a “DIY Everest Challenge.”

What follows is my full report, in the traditional three-part format: an Executive Summary for important people; a short version for impatient ones; and a long version perfect for busy people facing important projects and looking for ways to procrastinate. 

(Note: copious photos accompany the long version. They are pretty hi-res so zoom in and, if you really want to see something, right-click and select “Open image in new tab.”)

Executive Summary

The breakaway consisted of Craig, Ian, John, Ken, and me. (There was no peloton; we broke away from our sofas, our jobs, and all our responsibilities.) The first day was brutally hot. We had to alter our routes on the first two days due to road closures. We added a third day just to be mean. We ate extremely well. We broke tradition by drinking beer between stages. We fell short of the desired 29,000 feet of vertical gain, but not by much. Verdict? PASS. To paraphrase Faulkner: middle age may have killed us, but it ain’t whupped us yet.

Short version

• Ride stats: 45.6 miles on Day 1 with 6,575 feet of vertical gain; 88.4 miles on Day 2 with 10,633 feet of gain; 92.1 miles on Day 3 with 7,139 feet of gain. Total: 226.1 miles with 24,347 feet of vertical gain.

• Day 0 pre-ride happy hour: half a pint of Federation Brewing Zero Charisma Hazy IPA (Oakland)
• Day 0 pre-ride dinner: unbelievably large combo platter of chile relleno, beef enchilada, pork tamale, beans, rice, chips, salsa … probably at least 4,000 calories

• Day 1 breakfast: one lozenge of Wheetabix with FAGE Greek yogurt and raspberries, and about an ounce of sunscreen (consumed via dermal absorption)
• During Day 1 ride: two Clif bars, one Gu, two large bottles Gatorade, three large bottles of water
• Day 1 lunch: two large soft-taco-size carnitas burritos, some scrambled eggs
• Day 1 dinner: kid-size Trippel ale, medium-rare hamburger, waffle fries, onion rings, French-fried pizza crust, various dips (I know, I know: you are what you eat)

• Day 2 breakfast: one Clif bar, a glass of water, several large gasps of air
• During Day 2 ride: two or three Clif bars, three large bottles Gatorade, three large bottles of water, a few bugs
• Day 2 lunch (before final descent): hamburger, fries with mayonnaise, two large glasses of water, probably a decent serving of coronavirus aerosol particles
• Day 2 happy hour: New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA
• Day 2 dinner: countless slices from two 20-inch pizzas: meat lovers + custom build (salami, mushrooms, black olives, and onions), a pint of some local IPA (too distracted by pizza to note details)

• Day 3 breakfast: one lozenge Weetabix with either dairy or almond milk (too bleary to notice or shunt which type), crow
• During Day 3 ride: two Clif bars, one 20-oz. American (i.e., corn syrup) Coke, one 12-ounce Mexican (i.e., sugar) Coke, one Häagen-Dazs chocolate/dark chocolate ice cream bar, several large handfuls Kettle chips, four large bottles of water
• Day 3 happy hour: Juicy Haze IPA, slice of leftover pizza
• Day 3 happy hour #2: local hazy IPA, hunks of giant pretzel, chips & guacamole
• Day 3 dinner: pork broth ramen with egg, pork belly, veggies, extra pork belly, and extra noodles; two pork gyoza (gyozas? gyozae?)

To add excitement to the ride, we did much less training than for the real Everest Challenge (in my case, like a third as much). Also of note: this was the first real ride we ever did with John, our newest EBVC member. I’ve been riding with him for about ten years, but only ever to the pub. (It’s not that we’ve never wanted to do proper rides together; it’s just that we really like beer.)

For an hour and fourteen minutes of the first day, it was over 100 degrees F. Peak temperature by my computer was 108; Craig’s registered 111 before panicking and powering off. That day was cut short by a road closure: Inyo National Forest is closed this month to protect against fire, so most roads through it were closed too. We pioneered new routes for Day 2 and managed plenty of climbing and distance. Day 3 had nothing in common with the Everest Challenge routes but was designed to increase our vertical gain, increase our mileage, increase our suffering, and take advantage of our proximity to Tioga Pass. It succeeded on all counts. In fact, the whole three-day adventure was a rousing success: we had a great time, didn’t die of heatstroke, didn’t end up eating one another, and are already looking forward to next year.

Long version

I rode yesterday, a week after the DIY EC, and I just wasn’t myself. My legs were empty. They could turn the cranks, but only in a minimal, zombie-like way, and I thought, “What’s wrong with me, do I have COVID?” But I could smell the rain on the asphalt, and the Gatorade in my bottle, and I don’t have a fever. I’m just comprehensively, fundamentally exhausted … still.

I’ve raced the Everest Challenge six times (in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014). I always took the preparation very seriously, training a ton and giving up all alcohol like six weeks beforehand to lose weight and perhaps give my liver an easier job making glycogen. This year I didn’t train nearly as much for some reason (sloth? old age? denial?) which gave a little razor edge of excitement to the run-up.

Fortunately, I made up for the poor preparation by continuing to drink beer (responsibly!) all the way up to, and including, the night before the event. But I was good: I only had half a beer the first night, splitting it with Ken. Here is the official Beck’st:

If that EBVC bottle weren’t so hammered, you could read our club’s slogan: “It’s like you never stop riding.”

I already mentioned the giant Mexican dinner on Day Zero. I got to a point in eating it when I thought, “I’d enjoy the rest of this more tomorrow,” but then I just kept going. I was the only one to finish, and when I did, Craig turned to me and said, “You are a GOD.” I wish I could inspire somebody to say this about my cycling, but I’ll take praise wherever I can get it.

Day 1

The first day started near Big Pine, which is where Highway 395 meets Highway 168, the road up towards the Bristlecone Pine Forest. We parked halfway up the climb. This is normally the final climb on Day 2 of the EC, but we had to switch things up based on the lack of support and some other factors you wouldn’t care about. The van would be our second refueling stop; the first was at the base of the climb, where we stashed a cooler. So the first ten miles of the ride were downhill and we averaged almost 30. Here we are about to set out toward the first climb after removing a layer of clothing.

Our first climb was to Glacier Lodge; this is normally the first climb on Day 2. The temperature was perfect and of course we were fresh as daisies. Craig dropped us all by accident before waiting up.

Eventually our group broke apart again. Craig and Ian were the fittest, and John and I brought up the rear, keeping an eye out for a chance brewpub.

Here’s John digging in. He’s not rocking the EBVC kit for reasons I don’t understand. It’s possible he missed the ordering window.

Eventually I went solo on the climb due to my gearing, which isn’t so low. To maintain a comfortable cadence I had to set my own pace. As I made my way along I pondered the elegant mathematical shortcuts available when comparing my gearing to John’s. He has a one-to-one gear ratio, meaning the same number of teeth on his front chainwheel as his largest rear cog. Calculating gear inches can be a bit tricky to do in your head (especially when you’re fighting for oxygen); you multiply the chainwheel teeth by the wheel diameter and then divide by the number of rear cog teeth. But with a one-to-one like John’s, the chainwheel and cog cancel each other out, so the gear inch total is simply the wheel diameter, 27. My bike makes it easy, too: it has 27 teeth on the largest rear cog, which cancels out the wheel diameter, so the gear inch total is simply the number of chainring teeth, 34. I calculated the difference in our lowest gears using the guess-and-check method: I surmised it was something like 25%, and since 27 is practically 28 and a quarter of 28 is 7 and 27+7=34, this guess was pretty accurate: that is, at the same cadence I’d go 25% faster. I explained all this to John but he didn’t hear a word of it … he was, perhaps mercifully, no longer within earshot. At least my explanation didn’t put him to sleep like it has you.

WAKE UP!

Eventually we made the summit, or close to it (we’d gone past a Road Closed gate but then had to turn around when we encountered a ranger.) Here’s the only photo I got of the descent, for obvious reasons.

Our return to the base of the second climb was uneventful (other than a couple flat tires). Here’s the side road where we stashed our cooler. I love how aero, almost two-dimensional, my bike looks here.

Now, full disclosure: the actual Everest Challenge route would take us pretty far out on the road you see above, if we took it: a climb about as high as Glacier Lodge. We totally could have ridden this, and done three climbs instead of two, but we simply didn’t want to. The Waucoba Canyon climb is like a sauna; doesn’t feature much scenery; and is just plain hard. If you want to go do a proper EC route with all three climbs (and no support) and then hassle me for not doing the same, well … be my guest.

We fetched fresh bottles from the cooler, took an extra drink or two, and remounted our bikes. It was already broiling hot as we set out on the Bristlecone climb, Craig and Ian setting a sustainable pace.

It got hotter … way hotter.

Craig and I yo-yo’d a bit … at 108 degrees he had to back off the pace to keep from overheating, but at, say, 105 he would roll away from me again. Here you can see him just about to disappear for the final time as the mercury dropped all the way to 102.

I modulated my fluid consumption carefully so I wouldn’t get dehydrated but also wouldn’t run out. I finished my last bottle just as I neared the turnoff to where the van was—but wait a second, the van had moved! It was now pointed down the hill, and Ian and Craig had changed out of their biking costumes for the drive back. This is how I learned the road was closed. Oh well. I won’t lie: as disappointed as I was at the setback, it was a relief to be done for the day. Here’s what we ended up with.

And here’s the map:

Back at the condo in Mammoth, we made burritos (four of them) out of Craig’s leftover carnitas. We also foolishly drank a beer, and researched alternatives to the next day’s two main climbs: Mosquito Flat and South Lake, both of which (we confirmed) were closed, being on Inyo National Forest land. We decided that the non-closed first half of the first climb was enough, and for South Lake we could substitute a ride to Lake Sabrina (most of the original climb but a different final destination). Some official told Craig, “The lake itself is closed but you can drive up there to take a look. But if you take one step out of your car I’ll kill you myself.” (I’m paraphrasing here; he may have actually said, “I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”) Craig discovered a café a couple miles shy of Lake Sabrina, which we could hit on the way back before descending, with our distended aero-bellies, all the way back to the van. Thus our route for Day 2 was settled.

Day 2

We started Day 2 near Bishop, where 395 hits Pine Creek Road. It appeared, as we climbed out of the van, that God had decided never to inflict such heat on us again, and as a symbol of this covenant provided this beautiful rainbow.

We started out nice and slow, just spinning, and my legs felt surprisingly okay, but listen to how hard I’m breathing in this video:

The gorgeous scenery continued, making this ride the next best thing to shelter-in-place:

This first climb went so well, in fact, that I find I have nothing more to report. Here are Craig and Ken beginning the first big descent of the day:

We refueled at the van and began the second climb, Pine Creek Road. After a few miles Ian and Craig rolled away … I was beginning to sense some kind of pattern here.

But were they actually feeling okay? Imagine my shock when I saw that one of them had thrown up what appeared to be either Grape Nuts, pomegranate seeds, or Israeli couscous.

It turned out this was probably just bear-berry-barf.

I didn’t expect to see Craig and Ian again but I did, because Ian flatted. They’re adults with toolkits and know-how so I didn’t stop. They would catch me soon enough.

I made the summit and descended solo. On the way down, cruising at about 40, I kept seeing all these lizards darting out of my way. As I pondered their apparent mental superiority to squirrels, deer, and turkeys, who don’t know how to get out of the way of a speeding cyclist, one of these lizards came running right at me from about 10 o’clock. There was no chance to take evasive action (and I’m frankly not sure I’d have risked anything for a lizard anyway). The little bugger went right under my wheel. It felt like running over a pipe cleaner wrapped in felt. Its tiny reptilian soul flew past my head on its way heavenward. Poor little lizard.

We refueled again at the van. Ahead of us was a 13-mile slightly rolling stretch, mostly on Ed Powers Road, to the base of the final climb which headed southwest on Highway 168. We faced a tricky bit of logistics: we had about 27 miles to go to the final summit, 14 miles of it uphill, and would need another fuel stop—but it’s the middle of nowhere. Ken and John volunteered to drive the van across the rolling section and partway up the climb and park it there. Brilliant! Craig dragged Ian and me toward the climb at blazing speed. It was like motorpacing.

The climb, which gains more than 4,000 feet, was really hard, but also beautiful. I could try to describe it but these photos will do a better job.

Have you ever been to the Mystery Spot, or the Exploratorium, or any other venue devoted to educating or entertaining you with optical illusions around spatial perception? The mountains around Bishop are just like that: a road that looks flat can be a 6% grade, and what looks like 6% can be 8 or 9%. The gradient display on my bike computer is probably the main reason I didn’t lose all hope. The final third of this climb was not only 8-9%, but into a fairly stiff headwind.

I passed the tiny town of Aspendell where the café was, and presently perceived a rider behind me. Huh? Here, really? It was Ken. He and John had enjoyed a coffee out on the café porch and took off after us as we rode by. This was the best photo I could get of Ken; the camera stabilization software was no match for my unsteady hands.

The highway dwindled into a smaller road that got narrower and steeper as we approached Lake Sabrina. Not shown: the final grind of about 14%, when photography became impossible.

This selfie would have included John but we weren’t sure how far back he was and it was starting to rain. It’s a pity; we saw him like a minute into our descent but weren’t about to go back up that final pitch for the photo-op. Lake Sabrina is looking pretty sad with the drought and all.

We all met up at the café and were able to get a table on the porch.

The outdoor seating was a good thing because the staff & clientele weren’t hugely devoted to COVID protocols. John and Ken had noted earlier that nobody was wearing masks, and they’d heard snippets of conversation such as, “We don’t have a vaccine problem, we have a Biden problem” and “George couldn’t make it, he came down with the COVID.”

We had some great burgers etc. and the waitress was nice enough to take at least fifty shots of us across two phone cameras. You already saw one of them, at the top of this post.

It was cool up at 9,000 feet but during the glorious 14-mile descent we started to cook. After a good, long day in the saddle we were glad to pile into the van and head back to the condo. Here’s the Day 2 profile:

And here’s the map:

I already mentioned the pizza. The guys were really worried I’d eat more than my fair share. I assured them that if we ran out, we’d just get more. In the end we had a few leftover slices. Back at the condo we watched “American Ninja Warrior” and hurled verbal abuse at the screen … that’s how brain-dead we were.

Day 3

The next morning I had the worst bags under my eyes I’ve ever seen. I snapped a photo that would later cause my kids to shriek with terror and glee. (No, I’m not going to share it here.)

For this final leg we didn’t need the van: we rode right from the condo in Mammoth. Again my legs were oddly non-destroyed. I began to wonder if having a beer might actually help somehow. We started climbing right away, up this Mammoth Scenic Bypass (which as Ken pointed out sounds like what you’d take if you want to avoid the scenery).

Then it was a not-entirely-pleasant blast along Highway 395 for about 20 miles to the turnoff on Highway 120 west that goes over Tioga Pass. (For an entire blog post about cycling Tioga Pass, click here.)

It’s a long climb—12 miles—and gains about 3,000 feet.

Here’s a nice shot looking down the pass (i.e., to the east … I stopped and turned around to snap this).

Everyone went his own pace. Peer into the distance here and you can see Ken. Note the camera glitch involving the double-yellow-line.

There are a couple of pretty lakes up there. I reckon this is Ellery Lake.

Craig made the summit and rolled down the hill to pace me over the final bit, and got this photo.

Here are four of us at the summit, a few minutes before John arrived. (If I had the skills I’d Photoshop him in … or skip the ride and just fabricate the whole photo album, come to think of it.) This is at just under 10,000 feet elevation.

The descent was uneventful and lizard-free.

At the junction with 395 we stopped at that Mobil station with the oddly, famously good restaurant to refuel. Fortunately we don’t run on gasoline because this is the most expensive I’ve ever seen.

Now all that remained was the 39-mile schlep back to the condo. It could have been a 29-mile schlep but we chose to ride around June Lake, to take in the scenery and avoid some of the unnervingly fast traffic on 395. I knew these miles would hurt, as we had a headwind and over 2,000 feet of vertical gain ahead.

Needless to say, all this meant more time holding Craig’s wheel for dear life.

I don’t think Craig drags us along out of pity; rather, he just doesn’t need to draft anybody and surely sees no point slowing down (which would happen if I were to lead). The only time he didn’t pull was when he was snapping photos, like this one. (By the way, it may appear here that I’m smiling, but I assure you, that’s more of a rictus. If you could see my eyes you’d know better.)

After some rigorous climbing we reached a pretty sweet vista. The point of this photo is the gradation of facial hair.

Finally we reached the general store at the end of the loop. We gorged on junk food while Ken peered into an existential abyss. “Deep into that darkness peering, long [he sat] there wondering, fearing,/ Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Highway 395 was a grind … headwind, heat, rubbish road surface. The turnoff to the Mammoth Scenic bit was a relief, except we had to climb. The grade was a mother, generally only 5-6% but four miles long, into the wind, and I was fried. It was the hardest I’d worked all day but finally it was over and we coasted most of the way on to the condo where things suddenly got real, real good:

Here’s the Day 3 profile:

And here’s the map:

Epilogue

Is there anything to be gained from this experience, or from reading about it? Can we glean some lesson from all this effort and strain? Is there some point to it all? Upon much reflection, I can say: no. All the suffering was completely pointless. But then, that’s kind of the point.

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