Training - A Few Picture Thoughts

Here in town the most important road has to be Route 10/202. Not only is the town hall, the main fire department, the main post office, and pretty much every store in town on or next to it, it also gives the residents just one of a few avenues of escape from this very hemmed in (since it's in a valley) town.

The town thinks it important enough that it commissioned a study to set out a plan for long term development of said road. You can find the study here, but the bit that's significant, at least to me, is the cover.

Yeah, that's me in that second-left picture.

When I first saw this (because I took some interest in this, being a resident and all), I joked that I'd go look for the helmet cam clip containing the shot. I ride with the helmet cam pretty much all the time, I archive all the rides, and it'd just be a matter of finding the ride.

Based on the picture, I could narrow it down to a fall season ride. The long sleeve jersey indicates some chill, but the shorts tell me it's at least 50 degrees F. The booties put the temperature at about that point, 50 or 55 degrees. I figure I had Atomic Balm on, so I'd be okay down to 45 if I was riding hard, about 50 or 55 if I was going easier. Since it's training I would guess easier.

The route would have to take me through the center of town, going the "wrong" way for my standard Quarry Road loop (normally I head north on 10/202, in the picture I'm heading south). This meant I'd have to look for a non-Quarry Road clip.

Since I've only archived the last two years of rides, I wouldn't have much to search. But, as you might have guessed, I never got around to searching. Heck, I haven't put together a lot of clips or anything.

Today, with a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to import a bunch of files into iMovie (on the Mac). Each file takes a couple hours to import (and it blows up into a huge set of files) and I had maybe 20 or 30 files in mind. I figured I'd import a few of them today, mainly random training ones where something interesting happens - a fun descent, a hard turn or two, a visible trackstand (meaning a setting sun behind my back), or, my favorite, drafting something at speed.

At first it was easy. Clips from Interbike. My training camps in SoCal. A Vegas bit or two.

Then I started looking closer to home. I wanted to capture my last turn on each ride, a very tricky, super late apex corner, at the bottom of a short but kind of steep descent. I wanted to find my bear clip, the snake clip, the turkey clip.

And, of course, I wanted to find my drafting clips.

Well I had one Bushy Hill loop that had enough drafting that I labeled it "20101019_BushyHill-LotsOfDrafting" (the numbers standar for 2010, October, 19th). I reviewed the clip in Quicktime, which is a very "high level" thing, i.e. even little movements of the movie cursor makes the thing jump a minute forward or back. I recalled the ride as I watched the draft part - I'd caught up to some landscaping trucks after a mile or two of riding (they ended up stopped at a light), then proceeded to draft the second truck for a good mile or so.

I liked the clip so decided to import it.

Booyah!

Then, like I did each time I started importing a clip today, I went upstairs to get more chores done.

When it finished importing, I used iMovie to check it out. This is much more low-level, where I can literally move the cursor a second at a time, but I can move the cursor as fast as I want.

I went looking for the green truck but as I zipped by the bit on Route 10...

Something looked familiar.

I went back.

Now, keep in mind that I didn't have the Route 10 Study in mind. I didn't have the pdf file up, I wasn't looking for the study picture.

But I did remember some parts of the picture - a dark red tree (I think), a patched bit of pavement, and a somewhat quiet Route 10. I also remembered that I was on the hoods, not the drops, so I was going very slow, maybe looking around at something.

In my clip, as I rolled past the just-completed new fire station, I took a good look at it (hey, it was my tax dollars at work). Part of the fire station included redoing some pavement, and the shoulder ended up patched for a bit.

I found the original clip in Quicktime (which is when I realized it was the LotsOfDrafting clip), realized that I'd inadvertently scrolled right past the Route 10 bit, went back to the iMovie imported clip, and reviewed it a bit closer.

I also took the time to start opening the Route 10 study presentation, a pdf document, to check out the actual picture. As the document loaded, I found my Route 10 spot in iMovie.

I checked the picture, and sure enough, there was a patch on the road, the dark red tree, and, a key item, a 30 mph speed limit sign.

My view at that moment.
Okay, it's just before because the speed limit sign would have been out of view when they took the picture.

I found that bit in the clip, checked the now-loaded study presentation pdf file, and watched the next few seconds.

I figured that the picture taker was in a car - I didn't pass anyone standing on the sidewalk holding a camera, and the angle of the shot implies a picture taken from a passenger side seat, kind of low actually (not a truck or a tall SUV or a platform etc).

Sure enough, after I went by the 30 mph speed limit sign, a white hybrid rolled by.

The guy in the passenger seat still has the camera up.

I noticed the logo on the car matched the one in the presentation cover.

So, mystery solved. Or curiosity satisfied.

Of course that still leaves me with another 10 or 15 files to import, and at 1-3.67 GB each (and the biggest ones taking 2+ hours to import), there's still a bit of work left before I can start putting together some clips.

I'll make no promises so I won't have to tell any lies - I have no idea when I'll have the next clip together.

But hey, I'm making progress.

Now I gotta hit the trainer for a bit.