What's wrong with this picture?

Golden thinks, like some biblical parable of water into wine, that putting a bike sign on a road magically makes it a good road for cycling. So consider a few things that have not changed with this sign.

• There is two way-traffic and parking on both sides of the street. As you can see even cars find the road too narrow. It just barely possible for two small cars to pass one another.
• The speed limit is too high. One block away, on the same road, where there is NO parking the speed is only 15. Here on the dangerous stretch, it's 25. 180 degrees out of phase with reality--as usual.
• cyclists need around 3 feet from parked cars to keep from being doored. Imagine a car trying to pass a bike with an on-coming car. It happens all the time and it's not a pretty sight.
• this is one of the most pediastrian-crowded places on campus between classes. This leads to major sensory overload for drivers.
• cars turning onto this street routinely blow through stop signs because the sight is so restricted.
• the upshot is that I tell all my cyclists friends to avoid this road and take the much safe route via Maple.

The former police chief at Mines told me this road was a disaster but he couldn't get the City of Golden to do anything about it. Whoever is responsible for this sign should have his/her sign-making keys taken away. The sign is not only stupid, it is liable to give cyclists a false sense of security. Or, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Addendum: saw an RTD call and ride mini-bus today on Illinois. The road is too narrow for two-way traffic with one of these. When a car comes the other direction, it's a standoff.

How should ethical vegans think about insects

Many vegans, perhaps most, eschew honey and silk on the grounds of cruelty to the bees and silkworms. On the other hand, some non-vegans are suggesting that insects such as grasshoppers could be a significant food source in the future (link via @JaymiHeimbuch) [Of course, to vegans it goes without saying that becoming a vegan would be the most dramatic step toward "food security". But we must be prepared to confront arguments rationally and scientifically without resorting to vague, ambiguous claims.]

long road back

If all goes according to plan, next month I'll start racing again after a year of post-getting-crunched-by-SUV time. The broken bones and resulting surgery healed quickly. The back/spine alignment injuries have taken much longer; intensive physical therapy, electro-stim, bergs of ice (floating in, strapped to). For reasons of scheduling it looks like hill climbs, followed by TT's will be the order of business.

Federalist #63 and the House debt ceiling debate

"... so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?"  http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa63.htm

Save the Leyden Road

If you only ride in Jeffco, you may have no idea how much better the roads are in Boulder county.  We have redneck death traps like Golden Gate Canyon and Coal Creek Canyon.  Boulder has Left Hand, Sunshine, Sugarloaf, Flagstaff.  QED.  East of the mountains North of Boulder there are roads like Nelson, Hygiene, Nebo, St. Vrain (all east-west), and all the connecting north-south roads.  Fantastic scenary and modest traffic.  What do we have in Northern Jefferson County?  the Leyden Road.  That's pretty much it.  The creeping Kudzu of  Arvada is bent on covering every blade of grass with concrete and filling every open vista with office parks and Taco Bells.  Evidently Arvada has not been sated by the Candelas eco-cide.   The signs shown are new.  They were recently planted on the Leyden road and suggest that Arvada has turned its rapacious attention to this last lovely vista.  if you blow this up, you'll see the details of the "planning" commission meeting.  Here is a link to the full-sized picture

on the joys of icebaths

I first head about ice baths from Tim Ferriss' book.   For a vegan, his diet is completely insane and not worth discussing.  But he has some interesting training/recovery tips, the ice bath being one of them.  Since then I've noticed lots of reputable physios recommending ice baths or other cryotherapy (even LN2).  So, earlier in the summer when I ramped up my steep climbing and noticed that I was having a hard time recovering from super-intense workouts (15-25% climbs at altitude, near threshold, rinse repeat, puke) I decided to give it a shot.

It's no surprise that Norway's mass murderer was white

Having spent much time this past year reading the books of the great Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, not to mention Eva Gabrielsson's fine memoir of her 32 years with Larsson, it was hardly a shock to hear that the perpetrator of Norway's killing spree was a home-grown terrorist.  The Neo-Nazi's and right-wing xenophobes are sufficiently powerful and violent that Gabrielsson and Larson lived in constant fear for many years before his untimely death.  And did we not just read last week that Germany has been forced to obliterate all remains of Rudolf Hess and his grave, since the site had become a perverse locus of pilgrimage for neo-nazis?  On our last trip to Germany I was surprised by the popularity of New Balance sneakers, only to be shocked by the widespread symiotics of their trademark letter "N".

I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that we need to support courageous journalists like Larsson and Gabrielsson who risk their lives to expose the truth of these hate groups.  We could start by refusing to call these terrorists Christians.  Hate, violence and intolerance are not what the New Testament teaches.  We should also support organized efforts such as those by the Southern Poverty Law Center, who, among many other good works maintain a nation-wide list of hate crimes and groups.  But perhaps most importantly we should remember that we are all immigrants (unless your family has lived forever in the African rift valley).  I suspect the only countries without racial tension are those that are racially homogeneous.

If you want to find out about particular group, such as the  California Coalition for Immigration Reform or the American Family Association, look them up here. It's really appalling how many of these groups exist in the US and the extent of their vile emanations.