Promoting - Trailer Registration

After all that thought about vans and stuff I had an epiphany - what about an enclosed trailer for registration? Instead of using one for the finish line we could use the trailer for registration.

The other day, after dropping off Junior at his half-day of day care, I peeked at their small school bus. The windows were up high because the floor is up high. From a racer-registering-for-a-race point of view it'd be less than comfortable to reach up for a number. There'd be additional reach on the registration staff's point of view if there was a desk up there. Overall I had the impression that it would be awkward to do registration out the side of a van/bus/etc.

Trailers have much lower floors, perhaps a foot or so off the ground. There wouldn't be a big difference between having registration tables on a trailer versus on the floor. It should be better ergonomically speaking from both the registrant and the registerer.

A long time ago I priced large enclosed trailers for the Z. I considered "garaging" the Z over winter in a trailer because we didn't have a third garage bay. With an enclosed trailer I'd have a portable garage. heck I could move the car around if I had to move it. I could park the trailer in a number of different place (like, for example, where I over-winter the van), and, if I had to, I could transport other vehicles in said trailer.

Large trailers like that are large, expensive, and heavy. I think I would have needed an 8'x25' trailer to store the Z, maybe 8'x30'. This would be the limit of a normal hitch type trailer. I'd also need a vehicle with a 6000 lbs tow capacity, give or take.

For registration and race promotion purposes I would need a smaller trailer. I figure 6'x12' would be pretty good - 12' is two of our folding tables in length. 6' is narrow but with dedicated 18" deep tables I think it would be manageable. 7'x16' (or something like that) would be nicer but I want to be able to drive the thing around. I also need to check our storage bay to make sure a trailer would fit - the bay is plenty long but I'm not sure if a 7' wide trailer would fit through the doors.

The kicker is that I saw a slew of trailers for sale at $2500 (6'x12') - $7000 (9'6"x32' 5th wheel with awning, doors, etc). These are pretty big enclosed trailers relatively speaking and a heck of a lot less expensive than a Sprinter van, for example. Trailers also have much less "stuff" in them (drivetrain, fuel tanks, etc) so they lend themselves to customization better. Finally I figure a trailer will last a lot longer than a proper vehicle, and I can drag it around only when I need it. Driving an enormous Sprinter would be like driving an RV to go grocery shopping.

Concession trailer, 7'x12' or 7'x14'. $6k new.

You can stand in something like this. Note how low the floor is to the ground.

Standard cargo trailer, 7'x16', $5k for something like this.

Although big it's not very tall - we'd be hunched over inside.

My dream trailer would be one with a transfer switch so I could plug in the generator from the outside and then have some reasonable amount of electricity inside - plugs, UPSs, etc. With such a set up it would be feasible to have heat and air conditioning, a microwave, and maybe some other amenities.

Of course I'd need to be able to haul that trailer from place to place, and that would take a truck. A 5th wheel trailer would require a pick up, a regular hitch type would require any larger type vehicle. I'd have to look at pickup trucks or SUVs that are based on larger pickups, like the Suburban or an Excursion.

Even if a smaller size truck (like the F150s I've seen for sale, many of which are sister vehicles to Explorers, versus the F350s which are sister vehicles to Excursions) could pull such a trailer I've been told, with graphic evidence (said person's truck, trailer, and car on the trailer after a wreck), that it's best to have way too much towing capacity than to barely squeeze by.

Either way I'd be able to use a vehicle smaller than a Sprinter. It'd be either a normal pick up truck or a full size SUV (for a hitch trailer), both of which wouldn't be absurd to drive regularly. If there were at least two rows of seats it would be a carpool-able vehicle for traveling to races and such, and if there were three rows then it's really a good people hauler.

The snow on the ground has also made me think about a plow. It's one thing to hope that the roads are plowed at Bethel, it's another to be able to go out and do something about it. A tow vehicle for such a trailer would make a perfect plow vehicle too, especially since virtually all the full size SUVs I've seen have been 4 wheel drive. Clearing any late week snow fall would be easier if I had something like a Suburban or a crew cab pickup with a plow up front.

First, though, I have to put on a race. So I'll leave this be for now.

Promoting - Looking For A Van Replacement

I have a Dodge 15 passenger van, 2002 or so, bought really so that I could get stuff to/from Bethel. I rarely drive it, sometimes just 400-500 miles a year. The main thing is driving it from home to Bethel and then from Bethel to home. When I get scolded by the mechanic that looks after it (he says I should drive it regularly) I drive it to run an errand or two, like to go grocery shopping or pick up something at the hardware store. It has 51k miles on it now. I think I bought it 7 years ago with 45 or 46k miles on it. There have been at least a couple years where I used less than one tank of gas for the whole year. This year, as an example, I am just finishing off the tank of gas that went in early last year.

The van would be fine except it's starting to rust. There's a lot of surface rust on the chassis, the bottom of doors are getting bad, the step area to the back (from the side doors) is getting crunchy, and overall I know there's a limited amount of time left in the thing.

This means I need to get a replacement.

I figure the street value of the van is close to zero, maybe $1000-2000. It runs fine, meaning the engine and transmission. There are minor electrical issues (dash lights don't work for example, and blower up front isn't working), and at some point I'll need to do the brakes and get new tires.

As far as the benefits of having the van - I definitely need the space the van offers and in fact I could use more. Based on what I know I have a few choices.

First, I could fix the van. This is time consuming but would allow the van to serve more of its design life before going to the scrap heap.

I have a contact that can weld chassis/frames as I think this is going to be necessary eventually. He's also done body-off restorations of his own trucks and those of the company he works for, so he could do that stuff. As I said before the van is functionally good - it has good size, seems reliable, and it fits what I need. The work involved would mean lifting the body off the chassis (I think it's a ladder/body vehicle), redoing all the stuff on the chassis (brake lines, fixing rust, rust resistance stuff, suspension bushings, brakes), and then putting the body back on. I'd need to fix a few of the electrical things too, like the dash light thing, the front blower, but that would be it.

A deluxe thing would be to convert the rear to a duallie set up, with 4 wheels on the rear axle. With 2 wheels the van is inherently unstable and apparently dangerous if a tire blows. A duallie set up fixes that.

I imagine that this could take a long, long time, and these kind of projects tend to grow problems and extra work like a lawn grows weeds in June. The good thing is that I'd know what I was dealing with after finishing the project. The bad thing would be finishing the project.

Cost-wise I'm guessing it would be in the $7k range without the duallie conversion, another $2k for the duallie conversion.

Second option -  I could get a similar van that isn't as rusty. This would be the cheapest and quickest option. I prefer diesel just because we already have two diesel cars. Gas works too as all the little engines are gasoline powered (leafblowers, generators, etc) so either would work. Poking around a bit it seems like street price for a diesel van is $6k-10k for a similar size van. If gas it's on the lower end of the scale. Since I wouldn't drive it much fuel type is less critical. It would be nice if it were a passenger van because then we could use it to go to races and such, giving it a chance to actually drive a bit.

Issues include not knowing what I'm getting with a used vehicle, higher miles on the drivetrain, and less space. I rarely see a 15 passenger size van for sale and I have yet to see a diesel 15 passenger van out there.

I suppose I could get a sister van and then use the current van for parts. The rear axle, for example, is really pricey. The welder guy could help with any swaps and such. Of course we're dealing with project creep again so...

Third option - getting a panel type van. These would be huge relative to the current Dodge. They're usually diesel. And they seem to be about the same price as a regular van. I could modify it so that I could do race registration straight out of the van. In fact, if things were okay with it, I could probably rig it so that the start finish stuff is on one side, registration on the other, and the finish line camera on the roof. It would be a "pull up, park, open the sides, and hold a race" kind of vehicle. I'd need to ask the help of my welder friend but this idea really appeals to me.

Disadvantages include where to park it, the inherent lack of passenger space, and the fact that I've never driven one before. I don't know if I need a different license for example. It's definitely not a family friendly vehicle so I can't use it too much for anything else so it would sit a lot. This isn't good from a rust/use point of view - my mechanic would be scolding me regularly.

Fourth option - a Sprinter type van, i.e. a newer type van that is more efficient. They're diesel so that's good. Street price $12k-17k for one that's 5-7 years old and has 90-120k miles, with new ones it the $30k range. This is getting up there for me as I would have to take out a loan and pay it off through the race promotion business. I may even have to trade in the (2011) Golf to get enough equity for one of these things.

The benefits include a much more efficient machine overall, a lot of room, possible passenger seats (there are two seater cargo versions, five seater "crew" cargo versions, and then passenger type set ups).

In the long distant future a larger Sprinter type van could be converted to resemble that panel van described above.

The drawback is that I'd rarely drive a Sprinter type van "just because". I'd feel pretty ridiculous driving one to go grocery shopping, for example. It's possible that I'd be using it more during the summer to go to races but... yeah, no, I don't think it'd get much use.

Fifth option - well it's sort of the "catch-all" option. I'm not sure what else would work. Pick up truck (crew cab) plus a trailer? Minivan + trailer? Mid-size SUV + trailer? These would need trailers and I'm not sure if I want to do that - with a trailer there's additional registration stuff, taxes, and maintenance. Plus I'd have to buy the actual trailer and make sure the tow vehicle was strong enough for the trailer. Right now a friend lends use of his trailer for the finish line camera but if his situation changes and he decides not to have a trailer any more then I need to get something to replace it.

I admit a trailer would be useful for photo finish stuff because I could separate the two - leave the trailer at the start finish area and go to registration with the tow vehicle (pick up, minivan, or SUV). If it were a self contained unit then set up would be quick and simple.

The trailer would have to be big enough to carry stuff for Bethel - 2 leaf blowers, 2 Echo weed wacker type gizmos, at least 1-2 hand held leaf blowers, gas cans, generators, etc. I'd use it to store all the street cleaning stuff as well as house the camera review stuff (small table, monitor). We'd use our storage bay to for the trailer and the stuff that's inside of it.

My estimate is that the trailer needs to carry about 2000-2500 pounds of stuff, max.

With a considerable size SUV that might work well. For example I saw a locally listed under 100k mile Suburban for about $10k. That's big enough to pull a decent sized trailer but the Suburban is also a nice stand-alone vehicle - we can use it if necessary by itself.

The one drawback is that it would be hard to create a "pull up and race" vehicle out of a Suburban or similar (pick up, minivan). It might be possible with pull out awnings and such but it wouldn't be quite the same as dropping some side panels and leaning out to take the first release form. Still, though, to have a "E-Z Up Registration Vehicle" would be nice.

Of course at the end of the day I have to remember that my main thing would be to do Bethel. I don't need to go crazy, I just need to be able to hold Bethel.

Promoting - 2013 Ronde de Bethel

I don't know where to start so I'll back track a little bit.

It all started falling apart back in January or so, when I asked the town to confirm that it would be okay to hold the races. I'd sent them a letter a while back but it got lost in the shuffle and never made it to the town's board. Instead of getting ready for the races I decided to wait until I got permission. I figured if I started to prepare then they would say no and I didn't want to tempt karma.

Because, you know, karma's a b...  well you know.

This set me back by a month since I had to wait for the next meeting.

And from there it just went down hill.

I was pretty sick for a while, which is okay, but then my back went out. Instead of building my bike and preparing for the Bethel Spring Series I was laid out, unable to move much, barely able to look after Junior.

Write off another couple weeks.

I wanted to have a meeting with our regular permanent staff, the people that the races probably recognize as "part of the race". I planned the meeting for a certain Saturday. Because I've moved since the Series started it would be a 90 minute drive, minimum, to get to the meeting.

Then my brother asked if we could babysit their kids that evening. I figured it would be tight but I could do it. Then it snowed that day, the worst snowstorm in recent memory.

Push the meeting back a week.

I met with the folks on Turn One. They put $15,000 buying sod for their lawn. They wanted people to stay off of it. I promised them we'd keep them off the grass.

In return they allowed us to use their driveway to route bakery customers and volleyball participants (there's a volleyball tournament place at the other end of the registration building). This was good except I needed three more marshals now.

I met with the bakery folks. They had painstakingly built a regular Sunday business over the last year and they didn't want to lose it. This meant I couldn't use the front door area of their dining area for registration - I needed to find a different place for registration. I steeled myself and the staff for a return to the bone chilling outdoors for registration. I mentally told myself to remember the heaters and the propane tanks.

Then someone called someone who called someone else. Word filtered through the grapevine that we may be able to do registration indoors a few doors down from the bakery. We'd have power, a bit of space, and heat. It'd be a limited space but hey, that's better than outside.

I headed down there one day to check it out. It seemed like it'd work fine. It was larger than I expected, it was heated, and it even had a power outlet in the wall. The location was a retail lab of sorts so it had to be pristine when we left it. In the past the racers absolutely trashed the bakery, damaging fixtures in the bathroom, ruining the finish on the floor, etc. We couldn't have this happen in this new location.

After the meeting I waited word from the higher ups. Ultimately the powers that be approved us using the new location.

Phew.

Suddenly it was time, the last week before the Series. I had to get things done now, no excuses. It didn't matter that I had the worst sinus infection of my life - coughing so hard I was yakking, coughing so hard I couldn't sleep, ultimately giving in and going to the doctor. Junior had something similar, snot and spit up everywhere, then had a round of pink eye when it seemed like he was finally getting better.

Inevitably things fell through the cracks.

For example, in the past we would drive the van down a week early, loaded up with all sorts of street sweeping accouterments. This year, due to me being sick, Junior being sick, and even the Missus getting sick (she never gets sick), each time we planned on driving the van down we had to cancel. It finally got to the point where we wouldn't be able to drive it down before Sweep Day.

This meant I had to carry the sweep stuff and the race stuff in the van.

Now, in the past I've carried some extra stuff in the van, extra finish line cameras, an old printer, and all sorts of stuff we never used. I'd bring it "just in case". This year, to streamline things, I took all that stuff out - when I started loading the van it was virtually empty.

Yet when I tried to get everything in there that I needed for Sweep and for the race... it didn't fit. I started putting non-essentials into the Missus's car, one that she would drive down Saturday afternoon.

The van, a huge 15 passenger size van, was packed to the gills. My bike ended up sort of wedged up against the ceiling of the van.

With Junior in the picture we needed a sitter for Saturday morning. Luckily we had one but this was a new thing for us - the Missus working and me driving a vehicle that wouldn't hold a baby seat, going to a place where I couldn't really take him. Junior had to wait at home, and to do that we needed someone to look after him.

I made it to Sweep okay, we cleared a lot of the course, and I even rode for about 20 minutes until my back went out. Apparently it wasn't as good as I thought.

Then I headed over to my dad's and printed stuff, set up the radios, set up the registration spreadsheet, started adding this person and that person, and finally fell asleep exhausted.

Sunday I hoped things would go better.

It started poorly. I mean we didn't even get into Sunday and Junior was up twice, coughing like mad, doing his projectile vomiting he does so well. The Missus had me sleep in the family room so I could sleep really hard instead of sleeping while sort of listening for Junior.

We got to the race and we unloaded the registration stuff from the van. It was less than I wanted. I'd left behind little things in some of those "unnecessary" bins, things like tape, paper (I borrowed some from my brother), binder clips, some pre-made signs on number placement, stuff like that.

Early in the day someone came up to me and pointed out the release forms didn't have a spot for a team or for the race entered. I had printed out a combination competitive and non-competitive form, not the standard competitive release form.

1200 copies. Of the wrong thing.

Crap.

The camera... what a fiasco. It was set to 1080i, not 1080p, so the images weren't clear. Then it focused on the people across the street. It auto adjusted the shutter speed due to the overcast conditions, blurring the numbers.

Finally, by the women's race, we had it all set. 1/10,000 manual shutter speed, manual focus, 1080p at 60 frames per second. For the 5s and 4s it was too late, we had incomplete results.

It had to be terribly frustrating. One racer complained twice to me in person, then emailed me, then called me, complaining about the results. Someone posted a negative comment on a YouTube clip. I got three hang up calls, and although they were hang ups (well it was just breathing) I never got them before so I'm assuming they had to do with the lack of results in the 5s and 4s. Heck I couldn't say anything because the camera didn't work right for those two races. Going forward for the rest of the Series and beyond it'll be fine, but that doesn't help the racers in those first two races.

I was short marshals, even with a huge number of volunteers. I had some very hard working volunteers around that Turn One building, on the hill, and out around the course.

I entered the 3-4 race but with two weeks of basically no riding I got shelled. (I rode 30 min Friday, 18 minutes Saturday, and about 20 minutes during the clinic, and before that it was 2 weeks of no riding). Somehow that seemed appropriate based on the way the day had gone.

The Missus had taken her one day off that week to help with registration. When things finally started to quiet down she went and retrieved Junior from my dad's place and brought him back. Seeing him put a smile on my face after a long and difficult day.

Other things worked well. The radios, more powerful than last year's, worked fine from Turn Two. I even had the channels set up properly. I got the numbers okay. There were enough pins. We had enough pens. We had some extra primes donated to us. We have new grate covers. The stakes and yellow tape worked well on Turn One, and I have snow fencing in reserve. We didn't need the area rugs for registration.

I need to do more though.

This coming week I have more reinforcements. The Missus said she'd return to help at registration - this meant lining up my brother and his wife to look after Junior. We have two more staff people showing up, two that were unable to make the first week (another will return on the third week and yet another will return on the fourth week). Our camera is working. I packed away enough binder clips for a decade. We have tape.

Personally my back is okay - I'm not walking weird, I can pick up Junior, but it's still a challenge to unload the dishwasher. I'm not that sick now - I finished my prescription stuff last week, I just blow green stuff out of my nose regularly. Junior is a bit better too, sleeping a bit better during the night, no recent projectile vomiting.

Friday I need to pick up the print job (the release forms) and organize the binders and the numbers. The Missus told me she'd help with that - she wanted everything ready to go on Saturday so I wouldn't have to work on stuff when I got to my dad's.

I'll head down Saturday afternoon after the Missus gets home from work - we'll do a Junior handoff and then I'll head south. I need to do three things at the course. First, check the course and do any major sweeping necessary. Second, stake out and mark the Turn One grass area. Third, patch any real bad potholes and smooth out any of the jarring dips I can find.

After that I'll head over to my dad's to meet up with the Missus and Junior. And, hopefully, Sunday we'll have a much smoother race.

Life - Promoting?

It's been a while since I put anything up here. I realized that when someone referred to Junior as Junior - I only do that here, and I sort of forgot I did that.

Obviously the big thing for me is that the Bethel Spring Series is coming up. The races start Sunday, Sweep Day is Saturday, but the whole promotion thing has been going on for a while now.

Each year it's about small improvements. Sometimes we get a big break, like when we first headed indoors at Navone Studios. Other years it's just a refinement on procedure, nothing major.

This year there were a number of things. First we had a slew of changes on the back end, stuff that's not really related to racing but more to the entity that promotes the races (i.e. the legal me). This all started last year and we're scrambling to finish stuff for Sunday.

Next we've moved our registration area over a couple doors. This also required some paperwork (and I just realized I have to do some more of that said paperwork). I put hints in the linked post but I want to let the racers experience the impact like I did, it's a cool space.

There are the tenants in the park of course, and they need to be assured that they'll have access to their offices, that we won't prevent them from getting to work. This involved a couple drives down to the course. It used to be easier when I lived a few towns over, not a couple counties away.

There's all the regular stuff, permits and such. That's sort of normal stuff.

Personally it's been tough this year. Of course we have Junior now so we don't have quite the time that we did before the stork dropped him off. More significantly he's been building up his immunity by catching colds at daycare, and in doing so he's been affecting me too.

I had quite the winter, from before Christmas until now, plagued with regular flu type illness, a sinus infection that got bad enough that I was yakking when I coughed (first time for me), and, to top it all, my back went out.

That may not sound like it's related to Junior but it sort of was - see, when Junior was cough-yakking he slept better when he was a bit more upright. I got into the habit of getting up when he cough-yakked (at 11PM or 1 AM or whatever) and then holding him while I sat in a recliner.

He'd fall asleep, breathing heavily.

I'd fall asleep too.

A few weeks of doing this somewhat frequently and suddenly I had a hard time getting out of the recliner when Junior woke up at 5 or 6 in the morning.

During all this I was trying to train a bit. I got some good hours in during January but fell apart going into February. I think I rode 4 or 5 times this month so far, due to illness, fatigue (like if I wasn't able to sleep through the night), and my back.

You know you put off training and Bethel stuff a week here, a week there, and suddenly you're talking some real time.

So Thursday and Friday are huge, huge, huge push days. No training probably but a LOT of getting ready for the races. Everything has to be ready by Saturday at 8 AM which is when I need to leave the house for Sweep Day. I won't be back until after Sunday's race so everything has to go, and I mean everything. It'll be interesting to say the least.

For now, though, bed.

Tomorrow we push.

Life - Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started with canceling dinner because Junior hasn't been feeling well. We didn't want to burden our friends who would be babysitting him. He reaffirmed our decision by getting violently sick this morning but then seemed to recover nicely.

I've been sick too, for a few weeks, enough to use up virtually all the Dayquil, Nyquil, and over a bottle of new Robitussen type stuff. My back also went out, bad enough to warrant a very unusual doctor's visit a couple days ago, and that's consumed all the Advil in the house. My drive down to Bethel last week to do some race stuff was bad enough that I didn't think I could drive the car because I couldn't push the clutch pedal down.

And so I didn't drive again until today, when my back felt just a bit less pain than "white hot poker stabbed through my kidneys". In other words I can finally drive again. With me driving and Junior babbling and playing it seemed safe to take him to day care. He goes two half days a week and he really likes it so I dutifully trundled him down there.

Once back at home I started working on Bethel Spring Series stuff, ate a late lunch, chopped a huge block of ice off of a roof/gutter area (ice dam two years ago), and started to gather all the stuff Junior messed up in the morning. Then I got the emergency call at 4:30-ish to go pick up Junior. He'd gotten sick and so he needed to get picked up.

When I got there I learned he had projectile vomited on one of the staff, the "feeding" rocking chair, and a decent portion of the floor around the chair (4-5' radius, semi-circle pattern).

(This is the first time I've connected the term "projectile vomit" with what he's been doing semi-regularly for maybe the past couple weeks. It's usually once or twice in a day, then he's okay for a bit, then a day where he gets sick again.)

As soon as he spotted me he held his arms up to hold me, kicking his legs like he does when he's happy (he was in a high chair thing).

After we got home he had a bit to eat (technically he drank formula and some electrolyte stuff). He promptly projected that stuff too. Exhausted, muttering and fussing, he fell asleep. He woke up twice so far (with at least 2 false alarms), before 11 PM, fussing, muttering, but not really eating much (2 ounces between the two wake-ups instead of the 4-8 ounces he has each time he eats).

It seems "not so romantic" for Valentine's Day, especially for the Missus. No dinner out, no whispered sweet nothings, fussing because he's hungry or his stomach hurts or his throat hurts or he's hot or he's cold or he's exhausted.

After you get through with me then you have Junior doing all that too. Ba-dum-bump.

Seriously though it's not been really romantic in the "flowers and chocolate" sense.

Then I think of what's happened today, what we did, how we did it. Junior looks to us for comfort, literally reaching out when he's so upset he can't do anything else. He cries and looks at us and holds his arms out and leans towards us. Then he melds into you when you hold him, melts into your shoulder or chest or arms, curling up in his parental security blanket.

It's not just one of us either. The Missus tries to cover when I'm tired, and I try to cover when she's tired. She can tell when my back is bugging me and she steps in to give me help. She can see when I have things in hand so she'll step back and let me work things through. I try to help her when she's tired, when Junior's status seems to stagnate, but I let her do her thing when she's making progress with Junior.

We both have our parenting styles. They're not better or worse, just different. I learn a lot from her. She surprises me with things that Junior can do or can handle. We counter each other well, balancing a conservative approach with one that pushes a bit more.

We're working together as a team, like a well honed cycling team works together. We take our pulls and pull really, really hard. Then we accept shelter to recover without asking for anything more than just some shelter to catch our breath. We give space to each other to let each of us parent but offer a hand when it gets a bit difficult.

There's a lot of love here in this house.

Well a lot of love and a few germs flying about.

So Happy Valentine's Day to us. And to all of you.

Life - URT "Green Wine" show clip

So...

One of the common themes in the SDC helmet cam clips is the music. In case anyone missed the memo, the music has one thing in common (save a few samples from early on in my clip-editing life): they're performed by bands associated with one of my two brothers. Between the two of them they could be a band - they compose, sing, and play guitar, bass, and the drums.

Inevitably riders will ask one another what kind of music each listens to when pedaling on the trainer. I can honestly answer that my brothers' music has been motivating me for years and years and years - I listen to them in the car, on the trainer, and when I watch, well, the helmet cam clips.

Ultimately I made them using my brothers' music because that's what I find inspires and motivates me.

Unfortunately I only ever managed to video one brother at one of his band's last gig in Chicago, IL. Because of a mistaken assumption, I thought I'd have a clean recording of the sound (via a third party). However this wasn't the case, and since I didn't worry about sound quality in my own recording, I never took into account sound quality when videotaping the show. For example, for parts of one song i put the camcorder on top of the amps lining the stage.

Obviously that didn't do well for the sound.

It was worse when I reviewed the clips - the muddy sound was terrible, the volume just overwhelming the tiny built-in mic.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But there's only one take in life, and in this case the show sound was pretty bad.

Frustrated, I gave up trying to make a clip out of the very long, very awesome, very emotional show. I had no way of fitting the two together, not well anyway, not with the applications I had at hand.

Then along came iMovie on the Mac, with all sorts of high end editing capabilities. Suddenly the sub-second synchronization required of a music video came within reach. I found I could synchronize the live footage with a studio recording of the same song.

Although I find that there's some lag in playback (compared to the "master" in iMovie), it's still a lot better than I could ever have dreamed.

The show video has a limited harvest capacity. After I did "Deepest Knife" I went to do another and found, to my dismay, that somehow things just didn't work out. I seemed to have forgotten all that I learned while doing Deepest Knife. I also happened to pick a song that closely matched the studio recording, making compiling the video much easier.

Disappointed I set the whole URT thing aside. I still had the imported clip in iMovie but thought it hopeless to create another clip.

When I had the issues with iMovie I moved back to the old machine. My old projects were there including a few optimistically created and named URT clips, projects that existed in title only.

I picked up Green Wine because I really like the song and because someone in the audience was yelling "Green Wine!" until they played the song. I started editing it and things started flowing. It took a number of edits but it's about where it'll get. To make it more... complete, for lack of a better term, would mean sacrificing other "harvests", borrowing significant footage from songs I hold hope of completing one day.

I hope you enjoy this clip. It's a fun song, yes, but it also represents a significant amount of work on my part. Sub-second synchronization doesn't matter in bike race clips but when dealing with a live concert it matters a lot.

My apologies in advance for any synchronization errors, weirdness with guitar or bass playing stuff, etc. That's all me, in my editing.

With that caveat please enjoy:

Helmet Cam - 2012 CCNS Kermis, Aug 24

This year I got to do a few new races, at least to me. I count any course I haven't done more than once or twice to be new to me. It's different from doing the races at New Britain, for example, where I have some fond memories of doing the course up to eight days a year for the last 30 years.

Relative to a once-or-twice race is refreshing to say the least. It's fun to see a new course, a new tactical map, a new corner or four.

One event, the White Plains Crit, was a race I'd never done before, and for two pretty good reasons - it was the National Championships the first time it happened and the second time it happened it was the Empire State Games aka the NY Crit Championships.

Another one was the CCNS Kermis. The host team and promoters, CCNS, took a seemingly lighthearted approach to the whole race. On race day though it was a lot more serious than I expected - big signs marking the course, light trailers for the last race, vendor tents, and the fun atmosphere I expected. The race itself didn't necessarily go well for me but it was absolutely the best course I've raced for eons.

Actually I can't think of a more fun course.

Okay, I can think of courses that suit me better (Bethel anyone?), ones that were more difficult technically (a Tarrytown NY crit comes to mind as well as a one year Norwich CT crit), and which have more elevation changes or more turns.

In terms of a real fun course though this one takes the cake. The only thing is that it's flat so the climber-types won't like it. Otherwise it gives opportunities to the rouleurs (time trial types) and sprinters both, punishes poor cornering and poor fitness, and makes for an honest finishing order.

The second CCNS Kermis is set to take place on August 23, 2013. Until then you can use this clip to preview the course if you missed it last year. If you did it then you know what I'm talking about - let this hold you over until the kermis.

Enjoy.

Helmet Cam - 2012 NE Crit Championships M40+

Back on August 18, 2012 I did the New England Crit Championships, promoted by the Northeast Masters Cycling Association (NEMCA). I raved about the race back then, the fluent riding, the deliberate tactics, and, for me, a successful race in that I lasted more than 5 minutes.

Of course I wanted to do a clip of the race. It would illustrate some smooth and fluent riding, a couple tactical moves, and, yes, I actually finished the race. A 5 minute "then I got shelled" clip isn't any fun for me or for you.

On the other hand it's taken a while to get the whole business of producing clips straightened out, what with the new iMovie unable to import my clips such that they exist in iMovie, the time required to produce a clip, and, finally, our internet connection getting hosed in the wind storm a little while ago. I worked on the clips once I figured out an iMovie workaround (use an older version) and I have a few clips in near-completion status.

The NE M40+ race took me a while to produce, following my now-somewhat standard way of producing these clips. Unusually I had three major revisions requiring three different exports out of iMovie, each one a time consuming process. With the clip basically done I put it aside to simmer - this gets me away from the clip for a bit so I can go back and review it with a fresh mind. I focused on doing more stuff for the Bethel Spring Series, doing stuff around the house, and of course the internet connection thing.

I wasn't impressed with the clip when I finally reviewed my almost-done rough draft. It took two more iterations before I felt it "okay", making it five versions in total. Then the upload took all night but hey, that's life. Here's the clip.

Enjoy.

Helmet Cam - Sept 16, 2012 White Plains Criterium, Cat 3-4

In September I had the privilege of helping out at the White Plains Criterium. I also got to race it, the Cat 3-4 race. It's a great course, great venue, and the promoter is hoping it returns in 2013, hopefully in mid-May. The course really accentuates a racer's cornering skills, much more so than a Bethel for example. My race ended up a lesson on cornering which gets reflected in the clip I made from it. This clip has much more of an instructional feel to it, a little less of the "psyched to race" mood-only feel of most of my other clips. Enjoy.

Life - Internet Connection

Whenever I think of the Internet being down I think of one of the funniest clips I've ever seen. A colleague sent it to me in my IT days saying that, minus the Halo gaming, it reminded them of what they saw me doing at work.

Scroll to the bottom here and click on the video for Episode #1, "Sales Guy vs Web Dude". May not be totally safe for work (sound and visuals) and this is funny only if you're a geek or work in IT support of some kind. Or, as my colleague said, you work with someone who does IT support of some kind.

Anyway that's a minor segway because I was thinking about our internet connection.

In the last few weeks I managed to work around my iMovie issues where I simply could not import clips into iMovie. Ends up the newer version of iMovie doesn't work right so I'm using an older version.

This means I can finally work on clips again. I've been busy importing movies just before I go to bed (it takes 4-8+ hours), editing, then publishing when I have time (it takes about 1-2 hours to make an iMovie project into a .mov file), and then re-editing and re-publishing them as I find errors or weirdness.

A common error I get is the text I put in a text box disappears and it reverts to the default text and font. This happened twice in the clips described below in the credits, a real pain because I have to redo the whole cast, music list, and the various notes and shout outs. It happens less often with the smaller text boxes within the clip although I found a few so far where  the font changed back to the default.

To avoid errors I've been restarting the machine as soon as I notice the text boxes lagging or any other performance drops in iMovie. By then the app is taking 2 GB or more of memory and seriously faltering. Restarting iMovie usually works but sometimes other apps grow in size also, taking up the limited 4 GB of memory on the machine. At that point restarting the machine is the best option.

Finally, when I'm satisfied with the clip, I upload it. That takes 5-8 hours on our slow-ish connection, depending on a bunch of factors. The clips are generally over 1 GB in size so quite substantial for an upload.

I started a number of clips and realized that for one reason or another I didn't want to produce the clip, at least at this time. This took up about 8-10 clips worth of effort. I guess the good part is that I've imported the raw footage. The bad thing is that this took many nights and delayed the work on the other clips.

I did get one clip out so far, one from @TuesdayTheRent, because it was a mainly neutral clip. It has some tips in it and a fun finish. That one went together quickly, only two iterations and I put it up.

Next up in the queue I have a clip of the 2012 White Plains Criterium, a sort-of new race. It existed twice before, a long time ago, but disappeared until a new and enthusiastic racer made the race happen once again. It's a great course, a rare middle-of-downtown thing, very exciting to race, and I think it'll be a big race in the future. My clip offers some tips and observations and initially I hesitated in putting the clip up. After some feedback I decided that it should go up - I offer constructive criticism and I hope that this helps everyone who races. I've already made three iterations of the clip and I think after the 4th it'll be ready to go.

After that I'll be uploading a race at Ninigret Park in Charlestown, RI. I uploaded one clip from there in 2010 but I ran out of memory in the ContourHD because I didn't clear out previous clips. This meant I only captured 15 minutes of the race. Well, this clip is the 2012 M40+ New England Crit Championships. It's the best race I did last year in terms of the field's skill, experience, and tactical astuteness. I left the race raving about the skill level of the field in general. This clip also has some good stuff in it. I've done two iterations of this clip and need to make a few corrections before I upload it.

The third race that should be going up is the first year 2012 CCNS Kermis race. A fantastic course, one of the most fun courses I've done in a while, with a lot of tactical thoughts and comments in the clip. I'm just finishing the initial iteration so it's sort of the rough draft. I expect to need to make at least one more version before it's ready to go up.

Finally I did a clip of URT in concert back in 2002, playing one of my favorites "Green Wine". Although I'm already on the second iteration I see some major flaws in it. I expect at least one or two more versions before that can go up.

I don't have more clips in mind immediately at the forefront at this point. I want to upload everything before the Bethel Spring Series really kicks off so I need to do some serious uploading in the next four weeks. After that I'll hopefully be uploading Bethel clips for 7 of the next 8 weeks.

I was thinking of fixing and uploading the White Plains Crit this weekend but then something happened - we lost our internet connection.

We're currently on our backup wireless broadband connection but it's awfully slow - we can't even watch YouTube clips. I'm not going to clobber our already limited bandwidth uploading something for 10 or more hours.

So either I'll find someone with a fast and unused connection or I'll wait for our connection to go back up. In the past I could use a work internet connection and kick off the job in the off hours. Unfortunately that option doesn't exist anymore so I'm a bit stuck.

Anyone in my immediate area with a monster internet connection, please feel free to contact me :)

Otherwise it'll be a day or three before the next clip goes up.