I forgot to post what came in the mail on Monday:
The following request to change your USCF category has been approved and processed by USA Cycling:Member: Erik SelbergLicense: Road RacerRequest to change category from Cat 5 to Cat 4
Yeah baby!
A few weeks ago, I joined Union Bay Cycling / Wines of Washington cycling team. However, with Microsoft Flag Football games on Saturday (Fatal Errors are 10-0! Playoffs after holiday! Woot!) and my son being born two weeks early, I haven’t been able to join the Saturday devo (development - Cat 4/5) rides. Well, today was our football bye week, so 9 AM I met up with another 50-odd new friends and off we went!
One of the reasons for joining a team is to learn how to ride fast in a group. Certainly, there are classes available, such as the one Cascade holds . But ultimately, the theory is pretty easy to get across for a paceline: ride about a foot off the wheel of the person in front of you, keep your eyes on the shoulder not the wheel, and don’t pull (be at the front) more than you should.
What you then need is lots and lots of practice. Riding a foot off a wheel while dealing with changing speeds along the road is a lot tougher than it appears… and invariably, your reaction to almost anything is to slow down and get some space — which means you open up a gap of more like 3-6 feet between you and the next rider. The difference? One enables you to draft, the other gives you a face full of wind.
Tomorrow is the skills clinic the guys put on… lots of additional detail outlining what us rookies should be doing, how to ride together, team strategies, and so forth. Good stuff… I can’t wait!
So, I went for another meet the team ride with Union Bay Cycling, In the pouring rain… fun. Invariably, while talking with the riders, the topic came up as to what I do for a living. I mentioned I work for Microsoft’s search group — in particular, the new Search Labs group. One of the other riders asked if this was just a matter of marketing our product better… to which I replied that no, we actually have to make a better product. He then asked if the new stuff would be off MSN or something else… I mentioned it was Live.com. He hasn’t heard of it yet.
What’s the point? Well, a number of people out there believe that Microsoft will win because we’ll link in search throughout the operating system (Vista) and IE, and as people adopt Vista / IE7+ over the next 1-5 years, people will accept live.com as the new default.
Except that it won’t happen that way.
Sure, there will be some people who use live.com because it’s the default, just as some people use msn.com now, or people use Google because it’s the default on Firefox. But Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are all busy trying to change the defaults and hook into the APIs of IE and Vista. And with 1-3 year ship cycles for IE / Windows, there will be ample time to change the defaults. Best of all, OEMs like Dell and HP are going to charge Google / Yahoo to change the defaults — which of course means that Google and Yahoo will pony up the dough to do that.
But fundamentally, “winning by default” isn’t a way to win. In fact, it’s a great way to lose — you need to have a winning product in a marketplace, you need to have something that brings people to it. Hoping people will use your product if there’s a superior one out there just because you’re the “default” is just delusional. And people will use a superior product — just look at the rise of market share of Firefox over IE, the “default.”
No, this is going to be a long, drawn-out competition. It took Google about 3-4 years, from 1998 to about 2001/2, to dethrone AltaVista. And in truth, what really helped was the ton of people that came online and picked Google — AltaVista didn’t so much lose people to Google as a lot more people picked Google than AltaVista when they came online. So, you can imagine how long it’ll take us to get Live to that level. Plus, it has to be better, so it’s a stand-up fight. Our smart people vs Google’s smart people. Live.com is just a start, and has tons of stuff coming out… so keep watch.
And it starts with one rider at a time.
So today, I went on a Meet the Team ride with some folks from Union Bay Cycling, aka Wines of Washington team. We did just under 40 miles from 25th and Blakely down around the southern tip of Lake Washington and then back again via I-90. The fun bit was we did this going at about an 18 MPG clip, including a few faster sprints. Pace lines and groups are fun!
Ruben and I represented the Pastry Powered T(o)uring Machines at the final ride of the cycling season (according to Cascade , at any rate) — the Kitsap Color Classic . We did the Poulsbo loop and Hanville loop, for a total of about 55 miles (GPS forthcoming). The route was surprisingly hilly, especially the Hanville portion. Here are some pics we took along the way:
Ruben and Erik at Port Gamble
Ruben finishing a climb. Notice the bay in the background of the road? We came up from that…. huff!
Now, just how many bikes can you fit on the back of a Washington State ferry?
Erik’s Bell helmet gives him a lovely ‘do after a ride… just imagine how much he’d have to pay for that!
A day after Universal Cycles said they shipped my Craft jersey and A700 SLAM aerobars, they arrived. Oh, and it’s now clear that whatever Gotta Ride Bikes sent wasn’t even a recent A700 SLAM… the packaging was much more cleanly put together, and contrary to what Michael at Gotta Ride Bikes said, everything was there and accounted for, including the shims (2 metal pieces, not rubber that will eventually compress and loosen) and O-rings (including two with notches cut out for cables if you want to put in bar-end shifters or brakes).
So, looks like I’ve found where I’ll spend my cycling money!
A brief update on my grumping on mail order… yup, WesternBikeWorks.com did get the order right, and the DiNotte light works great! (and the celeste cork tape also came, so I can tape up the A700s when they arrive).
Maybe I should just order from shops in Portland…
A month ago, I posted about hating mail order. The reason? After placing an order with Gotta Ride Bikes (gottaridebikes.com), an outfit down in Texas, and receiving the item in question (an Oval A700 SLAM aerobar for my bike) within the week, I discovered that the aerobar was missing a number of parts, rendering it uninstallable and useless. In particular, what was missing was:
Part # Qty Desc
4 2 31.8 to 26.0mm Bar Adaptors (Shim) Right
5 2 31.8 to 26.0mm Bar Adaptors (Shim) Left
6 4 Bar Clamp Bolts (M5x15mm)
7 4 Extension Clamp Bolts (M5x12mm)
10 2 Arm Rest Riser Posts (12.5mm)
18 4 Bar End Plugs ("O" Logo)
19 2 Extension Bar Insert for Riser
I sent down an e-mail to Michael, who responded fairly promptly and said they’d send out a replacement. Well, a week goes by, and nothing, so I ask what the status is. He says they sent one out, but neglected to get a tracking number or anything. I’m skeptical that one went out personally. At this point, he says they don’t have the unit, but are willing to work with me to make things better. Michael offers to send me a demo unit they have, and knock off 15%. I’m fine with that, as long as it has the above parts. He says it does minus the 12.5mm riser. I agree, with the caveat that if it doesn’t quite fit, I’ll just return everything for a full refund as I won’t be able to try it with the low riser.
Well, the demo arrives, but I’m still missing the shims, the extension clamp bolts, and the bar end plugs. Sigh. I could probably use the bolts used for the 12.5mm rider as extension clamp bolts (they’re pretty close in length, and all the bolts are M5), so I could install it, but I still need the shims, and unless I want this to rust out I need the bar end plugs. But this really isn’t worth 15% (which is about $10). I’ll just send it all back and go with somebody else.
What baffles me about all of this is that even after mail explicitly stating what I needed, I was still sent something that wasn’t right. If you’re in the middle of a customer service nightmare, wouldn’t you double-check everything to make sure you weren’t going to make things worse?
So, moral of the story: stay away from Gotta Ride Bikes…
On the plus side, I placed two orders with two other vendors, both in Portland, OR - Western Bike Works (http://www.westernbikeworks.com) and Universal Cycles (http://www.universalcycles.com). >From Western Bike Works I picked up the Dinotte Lighting Ultra 5 Ultralight for $169 and from Universal Cycles I picked up that A700 SLAM and a Craft Pro Zip Mock Turtleneck Jersey. The orders were placed Tuesday early AM. The light came in today, and the SLAMs and Jersey shipped and should be here tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll now have some new online bike shops I can recommend!
So, while the Internet has done wonders for business, there are still issues with ordering something online. For example, the other week I ordered a pair of Oval Concepts A700 SLAM aerobars. I went with what I thought was a reasonable on-line bike merchant; they have an ebay store and are highly ranked; no bad feedback in the usual locations. They arrived Friday, 4 days later. However, they were missing a number of parts… it was clear that somebody had opened it and removed some of the parts. It’s not clear if somebody did this to check that everything was there and forgot to replace anything, or removed some parts for some other reason, and then somebody else shipped the package thinking it was complete when it wasn’t. Who knows.
Anyway, someone at the shop responded to my e-mail pretty quickly… said the unit was new, but the last one they had, and somebody had probably messed up getting it ready for shipping. OK… well, we’ll see when they ship a new one and if it arrives complete…
PS - name is currently withheld pending how they resolve this. A follow-up, regardless of how this turns out, will be forthcoming.
A bit of a placeholder to get updated later…
We did it! 2 days, 204 miles, 11 people from Seattle to Portland!
‘cuz I just couldn’t wait, here’s the GPS route: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.do?episodePk.pkValue=1062951
Lots of pictures and a video forthcoming!
Go Pastries!
Pastry Powered T(o)uring Machines 2006 STP Finishers Scott Naomi Erik Rich Joanna Ruben Megan Keith Paul Marc Lauren Greg
wOOt!