Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Riding Update

May 12-18:
Didn't record but near 80 miles

May 19-25:

157 Miles including Rabbit Mountain from home, 43 miles. Interesting how I feel on any given ride. I started out thinking I would do Rabbit, then Hall Ranch and back, but even though Rabbit is an easier trail than Hall and my total mileage was 10 Miles less than riding Hall from home, I was struggling. Some subtle mental aspect with the wind and a slight chill crept up on me.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Peak Oil

With the focus on the global warming being the big thing in the news, many people might not have heard the term "peak oil."

I have been watching this and trying to decide if I should be worried.
life after the oil crash is clearly an alarmist site but there is a lot of factual information there. One can discount it but one might want to make sure they at least keep an eye on it once in a while.

Here is what worries me.

-Fact is there is a finite amount of oil in the ground...unless the abiogenic oil theory of oil is true--unlikely but possible.

-Oil demand is growing due to India and especially China ramping up demand. People want cars here and there are a lot of people in both places experiencing more prosperity.

-Peak oil theory says we might have or will soon peak in the production, which means after the peak, it's being depleted faster than it's discovered. Prices are expected to skyrocket.

-Prices of oil ARE skyrocketing. There is debate as to why but if the market is correct, it might be a good indicator that peak oil has hit. People say speculation but maybe it's a foreseen speculation. The bubble might pop but then bulge right up again.

-I ride my bike to work, saving about a gallon of gas per day, but oil affects everything, so I can't just do my part and not drive to work. Energy prices effect all other prices.

-Senator McCain made a slip recently that we were in Iraq for oil. But this follows a game theory scenario that requires us as a oil dependent country to position ourselves to control oil, once peak has passed and the situation is critical. A conspiracist theory for sure, but it's also a game theory solution and game theory is a very valid field of mathematics.

-Progressive countries like Sweden are shooting to be oil free.

On the other hand, if you inflation adjust gas prices to those in the past, the price now is around the same price as in 1982. Thus, there might be some factor that is causing this that will go away. At the time is was the Iran-Iraq war. Prices might finally be catching up to what they should be. Maybe we were just getting a huge break for the past 20 years.

The question I ask myself is whether I should worry and act somehow or ignore this behavior as overreactions by the world? Say all this hype is true, and gasoline will be $10 a gallon in 5 years. What will happen? In Holland, the price in US dollars including the weakness versus the Euro is about $12 a gallon.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Training Update

Last two weeks

April 28 - May 4

103 miles

May 5 - May 11

128 miles including Riding Hall Ranch from the house which was 53 miles in under 4.5 hours. This included 3000 feet of climbing and mostly offroad riding. It was a great metric for riding White rim since it is almost exactly half of the 104 mile white rim trail which also has 6000 feet of climbing. When I rode into Lyons at mile 34, I felt really good, then I had a beer at Redstone Cyclery and my energy levels plummeted. The last 19 miles was brutal, especially since I had a head wind and a time constraint. However, I didn't take the shortest rout back, I took the most mentally stimulating route back.

If I had to do white rim tomorrow, I think I might be able to do it--as long as I don't have that beer in the middle.


The route:




Some of the experience along the way.









Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Free Music

Well sorta...you have to like Nine Inch Nails and give Trent Reznor an email addy. I'm sure this is an experiment in viral marketing, but really there are no catches other than giving out an email.




Get 'The Slip' here