Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Via BoingBoing, the amazing discovery that it is possible to buy a Pee-Wee Herman cycling skinsuit. Actually, I think I'm rather partial to the Tron suit. If only I wasn't quite so cheap...

Got caught up in the torch traffic on the way back from my bike ride. I hadn't realised that the Exeter leg started as late as it did or that the relay route precisely mirrored my route home. Too tired to take a long diversion through the outskirts of town — I blame a combination of yesterday's ride and today's headwind — I found myself creeping along Topsham Road behind the rolling police road block.

Out on the town for lunch to mark the departure of a colleague for pastures new — they're retraining to be a maths teacher! A good time was had by all and we were all on considerably better form than our last group lunch, when most of us were depressed by a combination of seasonal affective disorder and the imminent approach of Christmas. Rather than head back to the office at the end of festivities, I finished up the day working on a few things from home until both enthusiasm and time ran out and I went cycling in a pathetic attempt to burn off the worst excesses of lunch.

Gentle day spent potting around, catching up, babysitting, and watching the Tour de France. There wasn't a great deal of choice in the latter. It's constant presence on the TV made it almost completely unavoidable. That said, the scenery of the Pyrenees — courtesy of the French tourist board — was extremely beautiful and even the actual racing was surprisingly engaging.

Out for an early ride this morning, in an attempt to take advantage of the cool start to the day. Trip wasn't bad although, thanks to my choice of route, I found myself doing the same 100m hill climb twice in reasonably quick succession: once, tolerably, from the Dawlish side and once, intolerably, from the Teignmouth side.

The hills were almost (but only almost) worth it for the two fast and terrifying descents, which made me realise just how much skiing and cycling have in common — the obvious differences being that (a) skiing doesn't require you to climb the hills under your power; and (b) that if you crash while cycling, you die.

Not a good day for exercise, thanks to the horrible humidity, but that didn't stop me doing some biking/running, although by the end of it I felt as though I'd misplaced a quarter of my body-weight.

Having become convinced that my recent minor knee annoyance was due to a mis-aligned cleat, so instead of a proper distance ride I did a whole load of circuits and changed the angles and positions on my shoes after each one until I found something that suited. I found that moving the cleats back made a really big difference and that, with the old setup, I'd probably been using my toes more than the ball of my foot. I also found that that the left plate had drifted off centre, giving me a tendency to twist my knee slightly, which in turn may have been the cause of the nagging problem I've been seeing on and off for the last six months or so.

An interesting overlap between the worlds of professional cycling and ethics over on the Guardian's bike blog.

Inspired by an event in the Tour de France, William Fotheringham discusses the unwritten rules that govern the event — you do not press an advantage when your nearest rival suffers a mechanical failure, stops for a pee, stops to say hello to his family etc. After describing the way these are enforced through peer pressure, he laments the fact that the code does not appear to cover drug taking.

However, the two problems are clearly not equivalent.

The behaviours governed by the unwritten rules occur in public and, thanks to ubiquitous TV coverage, can be scrutinised after the event. This means that a rider breaking the rules can easily be identified and subject to group punishment. In game theory, it's like a form of repeated prisoner's dilemma where the results of each previous round are available to each player. Thus, cooperation is extremely stable because as soon as a player defects for his own advantage, all the other players will know about it by the next round and will most likely take retaliatory action.

The behavioural rules governing drug taking are quite different. Firstly, there is a lack of public information; drug consumption occurs in private, so it other riders don't have direct knowledge of it but instead must rely on inferences. This means that the risks of discovery by another rider are much lower than in the unwritten rules case — remember that Fotheringham's point is that anti-doping should be enforced by peer pressure and not by an external agency. Secondly, if we accept as an axiom that the drugs do indeed provide some form of performance advantage, then the cost of not taking them is high.

So in this second case, we are presented with a completely different problem: the risks of getting caught are low while, benefits are substantial and neither party truly knows about the other's choices. Which, I think, means that it may not be rational to adopt the strategy of the cooperative player of prisoner's dilemma. Which, perhaps, explains the existence of the various anti-doping agencies...

Pater's first attempt to lead his cycling group was not an unalloyed success. His planned route took in various local gradients, including Edge Hill, on the way out and a relatively flat return. Unfortunate, the weather changed and they found themselves cycling back into a strong headwind. It was, apparently, like riding 35 miles up hill.

Talking about this on the phone, I got the distinct impression that my father's mind wasn't really on the conversation; rather he seemed to be distracted by cramps, brought on by his ride. I was not at all sympathetic, blaming the problem on a lack of fitness and a dearth of meteorological knowledge.

Via BoingBoing, a set of truly amazing Retro cycling jerseys. I really wouldn't mind a Grinch top...

Despite having done both in isolate, today was the day of the first biking/running set since before my vacation and I wasn't looking forward to it in the slightest. But I needn't have worried. The bike ride was good and the run was, well, a positive delight. I enjoyed it so much that I seriously considered running the same route a second time just because I could. Definitely one of the best runs of the last few months.