Kathleen and I have been in New Jersey for most of the day, and I didn't bring a laptop with me. I'm posting this article from my Treo 650.

I'll be back in the office on Tuesday, so look for more on Operation Gadget then.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know I just got done television franchising rules should be relaxed to allow Verizon FIOS deployment, but we need folks like the FCC and state utility regulators to enforce some basic, consumer-oriented protections.

A great example of what could happen if Verizon is allowed to operate solely in its interest is illustrated in a recent article on Om Malik's Broadband Blog. Om reports that a reader told him that Verizon is deactivating copper facilities to people's homes as it installs a new fiber-optic connection.

This supposedly locks new FIOS customers into Verizon because the FCC has ruled that dedicated fiber optic network facilities do not have to be shared with competitive local exchange carriers.

My emphasis in the previous post was that FIOS deployment should advance the competitive market. If FIOS allows Verizon to lock out some of its competitors and create an oligopoly, then our Federal government is on the verge of creating a big competitive problem in the future.

Technorati Tags: FIOS

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A page one report in today's The Wall Street Journal indicates that Verizon is having difficulty launching FIOS-based television services in many parts of the country. Verizon plans to invest some $20 billion on a large-scale fiber-to-the-home deployment project, but is being asked for costly concessions on a town-by-town basis in exchange for a cable television franchise. According to the article:

Budget-strapped local officials, who have the final say over granting cable-TV-service franchises, are greeting the phone giant with expensive and detailed demands. In New York state, Verizon faces requests for seed money for wildflowers and a video hookup for Christmas celebrations. Arlington County, Va., wants fiber strung to all its traffic lights so it can remotely monitor traffic flow. Holliston, Mass., is seeking free television for every house of worship and a 10% video discount for all senior citizens. Others want high-speed Internet for sewage facilities and junk yards, flower baskets for light poles, cameras mounted on stop lights and Internet connections for poor elementary students.

FIOS is meant to compete with services like Comcast Digital Cable, Time Warner Digital Cable, and IO Digital Cable from Cablevision. These are premium, broadband-based television services with an emphasis on video on demand and bundled Internet access.

The providers have attached high monthly fees to these services in towns where they have monopolies. Beyond switching to DirecTV or The Dish Network, which can't provide broadband Internet service because of their satellite delivery method.

Walt Mossberg pointed out in September that FIOS has already changed the competitive landscape in high-speed Internet access in a limited number of areas of the Northeast. These are places where Verizon has decided to deploy FIOS in advance of permission to offer television services.

America needs a competitive digital television marketplace. More than one broadband solution in each town would be ideal. If the issues with the cable franchising process are that it's too political and too dependent on the whims of local franchise boards, maybe the solutions are to regionalize these boards and bring them into the 21st century by creating new rules that are designed for a competitive market rather than a monopoly. Deployment of a fiber-to-home network is very expensive, so regulatory barriers should be lowered to Verizon for a period of time.

If incumbent cable franchisees complain, they should be offered similar terms for similar capital investments. If upgrades have already been made, the requirements of their franchises should be temporarily relaxed in the same fashion offered to Verizon. [ Subscription required to view many articles from the Wall Street Journal ]

Technorati Tags: FIOS, Comcast Digital Cable, Time Warner Digital Cable, IO Digital Cable, DirecTV, Dish Network

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr Offers Photo Printing at Target
[ image created by Dave Aiello, courtesy of Flickr ].

Flickr announced the introduction of a photo print ordering service for users in the United States. The service is offered in conjunction with Target Stores. You have the option of picking your photo order up at your local Target store or having the order mailed to you.

One nice feature Flickr added was the ability to control who is allowed to order prints of your photos. This is done through a Photo Printing preferences page where you can choose:

• Only You
• You and your family
• You and your friends
• You, your family and friends
• You and any of your contacts
• Any Flickr member

I think Flickr is a great service. I use it all the time to share photos with my friends and family. I'm sure the pressure will be on me to enable this feature and upload my photo backlog before Christmas.

Update: I posted on Operation Gadget this with the BLOG THIS feature of Flickr. It was an interesting experience. Flickr timed out waiting for a response from Operation Gadget confirming that the post had been successful, so I mistakenly triple posted this article. Flickr also doesn't check to see if you wrote all of the necessary HTML for the article; It goes ahead and adds line breaks for you and inserts some inline CSS for good measure. I had a bit of clean up to do when I came back to this site. [ via Atmaspheric | endeavors ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just noticed that Amazon.com is offering Corel Paint Shop Pro 9 while supplies last for as little as $19.99! Paint Shop Pro is a great photo editing tool for people who don't need all the complexity of Adobe Photoshop Elements, but who still want to do things like:

• fill flash filter correction
• digital camera image noise removal
• anti-aliased text addition

I use Paint Shop Pro to do quick image editing nearly every day. From what I hear about Version 9, you need a fast computer with plenty of memory and a large screen to take best advantage of the photo editing features, but it's hard to beat the price.

To get the $19.99 price, you need to apply for a rebate, but even if you don't, you get Paint Shop Pro at 50-percent off the list price.

Why such a great deal? Corel's going upscale with Corel Paint Shop Pro X, the new version which was released last month. The list price of Paint Shop Pro X is $129.99, it's on sale for $99.99, but you can get it for as little as $69.99 after rebate.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was IMing with Hubert from Ubergizmo today who pointed out that Ubergizmo is publishing a PlayStation Portable-specific version of their site. The URL for it is psp.ubergizmo.com.

I haven't been following the development of the PSP market too closely, but I think that the PSP has the potential to transcend the gaming market in the way that the Apple iPod product line has redefined what people want to do with their portable music players. Still I have to ask the question, are enough people surfing the web with their PSP to justify a PSP-specific version of a gadget site?

Hubert is looking for feedback about his site from anyone who accesses the web with their PSP, so if you're interested, check it out.

BTW, I was also curious about how the PSP-specific site would handle hits from PC-based browsers. I tried hitting psp.ubergizmo.com from my Blogging Workstation, and I was redirected to the Ubergizmo home page.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was talking to Ed Anuff earlier today and I mentioned that TomTom is running a lot of radio ads on the major AM-band stations in New York for its portable GPS navigation systems like the TomTom Go 700.

He said he's hearing a lot of ads in the Bay Area as well.

I'm really intrigued by TomTom navigation systems because they appear to be more user-friendly than many of the factory-installed systems I've seen. The radio ads are also the first major effort to sell navigation systems to anyone other than new car buyers.

Technorati Tags: Tom Tom

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of loyal readers have emailed to find out what I've been up to recently. I haven't posted much at all on Operation Gadget since we got home from The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope, and there are some important reasons for this. Let me list a few of them here:

• Helping launch a new multi-author weblog: My friend Chris Nolan hired me to help build her new multi-author weblog called Spot-On which went live October 5. We're still tweaking the site to make it perfect, but this was an effort that demanded tremendous focus and intensity. [ If you need help building a state-of-the-art weblog, visit Weblog Improvement, my blog design consulting business. ]
• Restoring some websites that got knocked off-line: CTDATA had one of its three servers knocked off-line by an infrastructure failure at one of our ISPs. My partner and I decided to take this opportunity to move onto a LAMP platform three websites that still ran on Windows. This took significantly longer than I expected, and we're not quite done yet.
• Officiating lots of hockey games: I've officiated 13 hockey games in the last 18 days. That may not seem like much, but seven of them were ACHA college hockey games. ACHA games are three hours long and are often fifty or more miles away from my house. Officiating one of these games can take half a day including travel to and from the arena.
• Family issues: We've had a lot going on in our family over this period as well. I can't get into what's happening now, but I hope to have some news to share with Operation Gadget readers shortly.

Thanks for your interest and I hope to have more articles posted here shortly.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget will turn two years old in a couple of weeks. Overall, it's done really well, and we've established an audience in several different niches:

• electronic gadgets,
• technology used in sports,
• Lance Armstrong Foundation-related and Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope fundraising,
• professional cycling

All of these are worthwhile topics for a weblog, but Operation Gadget's coverage has been a bit inconsistent because I've tended to focus on a specific topic at different times of the year. For instance during July, coverage on Operation Gadget focused on The Tour de France. I was hesitant to go off topic at that time to talk about an electronic gadget even if the story would have been very topical.

I'm not announcing any new weblogs right now, but I want to say that I expect that Operation Gadget will become two or more weblogs by the Spring 2006.

If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to post them or email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There was a really interesting article in New York Times Magazine yesterday called Meet the Life Hackers. Clive Thompson interviewed a number of personal productivity researchers in academia and the technology industry, and discussed their findings. Among other things:

• Interruptions that cause concentration breaks hurt productivity, resulting in as much as a 25-minute delay before return to the original task
• Very large displays or multiple monitors help productivity
• Low tech solutions such as the Hipster PDA are successfully employed by a number of the most productive technology workers
• Techniques discussed in Getting Things Done often cited by productive people in technology-oriented businesses
• Apple Macintosh computers are disproportionately favored, despite the apparently significant investment in interruption research and productivity made by Microsoft

It surprised me that Clive Thompson didn't understand why Macintosh computers were favored over Windows PCs by GTD adherents. These people have a maniacal focus on fitting tools to the tasks at hand. As a result, they gravitate toward the most user-friendly and customizable computing environment. Apple has done a better job of putting customization tools in the hands of their users than has Microsoft.

When Thompson says "...even the geekiest life hackers find they need to trick out their Apples with duct-tape-like solutions; and even that sometimes isn't enough," he fails to realize that the tools in Apple's Tiger OS make the crafting of duct-tape-like solutions possible for people with minimal programming skill. Microsoft's solutions, such as Visual Basic for Applications, are much more complicated.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Pink Breast Cancer Charm Bracelets
are new for 2005 and are available from
Target.com and Amazon.com.
They benefit The Breast Cancer
Research Foundation.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The businesses down on State Street in my hometown of Newtown, Pennsylvania have all decorated their storefronts in pink. This is to remind everyone that we need to find a cure for this disease which still kills far too many women each year.

Operation Gadget doesn't have a storefront, but we have the ability to get involved and call attention to products that support the cause. For the second consecutive year, Target has released limited edition, pink products to increase awareness of breast cancer. By far, the most popular product in the line last year was the Target Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Wristband.

Target decided to come out with new breast cancer awareness bracelets for 2005. The Target Pink Charm Bracelet Set has replaced the original Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Wristbands, of which Target sold hundreds of thousands last Fall.

Instead of the classic rubber bracelet, Target has designed thinner plastic bands in three different shades of pink. On these bracelets, you can hang charms that say "Hope," "Love," "Courage," "Mother," "Sister," and "Friend". These charms are included with your purchase.

Target's Pink Charm Bracelet Sets are much more widely available now than the original Breast Cancer Awareness Wristbands. If you are looking to purchase Breast Cancer Awareness jewelry, we recommend that you order the Charm Bracelet Sets unless you are willing to wait for delivery of Breast Cancer Awareness Wristbands.

Each Target Pink Charm Bracelet Set costs $10.00 and includes:

• 4 triple-strand rubber bracelets joined by a silvertone Target/ribbon charm
• 20 single-strand bracelets in shades of pink
• 6 inscribed silvertone charms that hook onto bracelets

Target donates one hundred percent of the profits on its Breast Cancer Awareness Products to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization founded by Evelyn Lauder in 1993. The BCRF granted over $18 million dollars in 2004 to 97 researchers in the United States, Belgium, Canada, France, Israel, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I spent a long time on Sunday morning trying to collect my thoughts on the cancellation of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington DC Fundraising Ride and the Tour of Hope Grand Finale on The Ellipse. In the end, I was frustrated and ended up being late for a college hockey game that I had to officiate.

One good idea I had on Sunday was to compare the coverage that The Washington Post provided last year versus this year. After all, the one of the goals of the entire Tour of Hope program is to raise awareness of the importance of adult participation in cancer drug clinical trials. Awareness can only come from publicity, whether it comes in the form of advertising or media coverage.

Last year Susan Kinzie wrote a great piece called 'Live Strong' Tour Cruises to the Mall:

Early yesterday before the mist had burned off, bicyclists strapped on sleek helmets around their ears, safety-pinned numbers on friends' backs and waited. Then a black SUV rolled into Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda. People ran after it and crowded around cheering, reaching over their heads to snap photos, a bright yellow band on almost every other wrist.

Lance Armstrong had arrived....

People strained to see him, teetering on tiptoes or squeezing through the crowd with pictures for him to sign. A woman with blond curls wiped away tears. A little boy on his dad's shoulders grinned like crazy....

This is the kind of publicity that we need in order to advance our causes.

Compare that to what made it into The Washington Post on Sunday. The biggest article that referred to the The Tour of Hope was Heavy Rain Wallops Area, Prompting Evacuations in Northern Maryland. It said:

The triumphant finale of the Tour of Hope cross-country bicycle ride, lead by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, was also washed out after rain flooded some of the roads on which the cyclists -- including 1,500 local riders -- were supposed to travel.

The event had been scheduled to culminate in a festival on the Ellipse, which was canceled. But at the last minute, when the rain faded briefly to a drizzle at around 1 p.m. Armstrong thrilled fans by riding down Constitution Avenue with his 25 Tour of Hope teammates to celebrate the end of the nine-day, cross country bike relay that raised more than $1.5 million for cancer research.

That was pretty much it, other than The Associated Press article by Jim Litke, Sportsview: For Armstrong, Good to Be King, which spent more time on Lance's 70 days of retirement than the 10 days of the Tour of Hope.

I think Chris Brewer from The Paceline did the best job of putting in perspective everyone's frustrations at the ride cancellation and the Tour of Hope National Team's exhilaration at finishing their coast-to-coast ride. His article includes some great photos of the flooding at The Ellipse and of the abbreviated post-arrival event that took place inside The J.W. Marriott in Downtown Washington.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Everyone involved in the Tour of Hope should be proud of raising $1.5 million dollars to help fund cancer research. We should be encouraged by the connections that the National Team made with the public in La Jolla, Austin, Houston, Jackson, Mississippi, Atlanta, and Charlotte. But we have to admit that we all missed an opportunity to connect with people in the Greater Washington area on Sunday.

The folks that live in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia have an enhanced opportunity to influence national public policy. We need their support, which is why the Tour of Hope culminates in a large public event on The National Mall.

I hope that we all have the opportunity to meet at The Ellipse next Fall to have the celebration that we would have had on Sunday.

I'd like to thank my wife, Kathleen, who made a big effort to be there to support me in my second Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride. Thanks to our family for their financial support and in-person support on Saturday. Thanks also to my donors who made my participation in The Tour of Hope possible, and to the friends I've made through the Tour of Hope including:

• Cecil Ledesma,
• Carl Albuquerque,
• Barbara Bodenstein,
• Andrew Heiman,
• Bryan Katz

This concludes the main part of Operation Gadget's coverage of the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope. Our complete article archive from the National Team Application Process, the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail Dedication, National Team Rider interviews, my personal training and fundraising efforts, and National Ride coverage can be found at: http://www.operationgadget.com/2005_tour_of_hope/.

[ Registration required to read articles at The Washington Post and The Paceline ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The plans of at least 1,000 cyclists to participate in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope were abruptly changed before 7:00am this morning. Upon arriving at the 50-mile route start at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland, we all learned that the ride was cancelled. That was a huge disappointment, but it was understandable given the huge amounts of rain that had fallen overnight. And the rain continued to fall as we stood there, trying to figure out what to do next.

The riders who had used the shuttle from the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington knew what they had to do; They had to get on any available bus back to where they started. Most of us who drove in this morning stood and waited for Lance to come and speak to us.

More on the situation at the race start after I return home. Riders should feel free to add their reaction to the bad news.

Update on October 9 at 11am: It's hard for me to look back on Saturday and come to any other conclusion than that the organizers made the right decision. In the end 7.25 inches (18.4 centimeters) of rain fell in two days at Reagan National Airport in Washington. I know how much we all wanted to ride yesterday, but I didn't want anyone to get hurt either.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

A special welcome to the participants in the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope. Operation Gadget is a website about electronic gadgets and sports technology, edited by Dave Aiello. Dave Aiello is a two-time participant in the Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride in Washington, DC. Our site has gone wall-to-wall with Tour of Hope coverage for the last 10 days.

We will continue to post information about the Tour during the weekend in Washington and after we return home. In the meantime here are a few highlights of our recent coverage:

• Dave Aiello's Flickr Photo Stream with shots from his Treo 650's camera where available
• Jeff Tredup Interview. 2005 Tour of Hope National Team Member.
• Map of 50-Mile Course for Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride
• Weather forecast for Washington, DC on October 8
• Links to Tour of Hope coverage on ThePaceline.com
• All the articles about the 2005 Tour of Hope from Operation Gadget
• All the articles about the 2004 Tour of Hope from Operation Gadget

If you have any comments or suggestions email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I'm leaving in a little while to head to Maryland for the start of the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington Fundraising Ride. The ride starts at 7:00 am Eastern Time on Saturday morning. Weather conditions are expected to be poor with rain and some wind in the morning. As a result, I don't expect to be able to do much in the way of live blogging of the 50-mile ride.

Hopefully, the conditions will improve as the day goes on. Wish us all luck.

Fellow riders, if you want to reach me and you don't have my mobile phone number, email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com. I have my Treo and I will call you back.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jeff Tredup: Member of the 2005
Tour of Hope National Team
[ Photo: Tour of Hope ]

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Jeff Tredup, a cancer researcher at Bristol-Myers Squibb who is a member of the 2005 Tour of Hope National Team. I first met Jeff at the dedication of a segment of The Lawrence-Hopewell Trail that took place at BMS's campus in Hopewell, NJ. He lives in Pennington, NJ, which makes him the only member of the Tour of Hope National Team who lives in my home area.

I asked Jeff how he got into riding a bicycle? He said he started riding as a kid, and at the time he thought of riding a bike as his little bit of freedom on the road. He got into mountain biking in 1991 when he moved to New Jersey from Illinois. He joined the Princeton Freewheelers, a large local biking organization and more or less switched to road biking. Jay Stevenson of the 2003 Tour of Hope team is also a member of the Freewheelers.

Tredup said that he got into drug research after studying plant genetics in college. He started working in an immunology lab at the University of Illinois after graduation. He got his job at Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1991.

I said, "You were diagnosed with thyroid cancer more than four years ago and your bio says that you still have detectable cancer cells in your body. What does that mean in terms of your prognosis? Are you still under treatment?"

Jeff said that his thyroid cancer spread into his lymph nodes, which makes it very difficult to totally eliminate, but he's doing well enough today to participate in the Tour of Hope as a National Team member.

Tredup first applied for the Tour of Hope National Team in 2004, but had to widthdraw his application because he had a recurrence and had to go through a second round of radiation.

I was surprised to learn that Jeff hadn't participated in the Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride before, since the first two years of the ride were short and relatively easy to complete. He said that he didn't participate last year because he broke his collarbone while trying to recover from his second bout with cancer.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

A friend of mine has a brother who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I asked Jeff where my friend should look for information about clinical trials that may reduce his brother's drug and care costs. Jeff recommended the following websites:

• http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/, and
• http://www.clinicaltrialshelp.org/

I recently moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, so I was curious where the Tour of Hope National Team rode when they had their first training camp in Princeton back in June. Tredup said that they rode over the Washington's Crossing Bridge on the Delaware River and into Bucks County. They also went into the area around Pennington, NJ. He wasn't anymore specific than that. I guess they might have ridden along many of the same roads that I did on my 23-mile ride on Tuesday that took me through towns like Newtown, Solebury, and New Hope.

Jeff said that Carmichael Training Systems has a web-based training journal where the National Team coaches post a series of workouts a week in advance. He doesn't upload data from his heart rate monitor, but has it available during discussions with his coaches. He had lost 20 pounds between mid-June and the last week in August as a result of his training.

The National Team was planning to taper off their riding in the last week before they left for San Diego. This was according to a plan which would have them arriving fresh and close to their peak fitness, rather than over-trained.

Jeff said that the National Team met in Madison, Wisconsin for a training camp in August. At that time they visited Trek's manufacturing facility and did a number of training rides. He said that the intensity level of those rides was much higher than the rides during the camp that they had in Princeton in June. The team members have come to know what they need to do in order to be ready for the Coast-to-Coast Ride.

He felt that the team had tremendous focus when they were together in Wisconsin. When they came together in June, many of them were still reacting to the sensations of being chosen for the team.

I got the impression through this interview that Jeff Tredup embodies all of the qualities that the Tour of Hope organizers look for in a National Team member: commitment to the cancer cause, athleticism, modesty, intensity, and excellent communications skills. It was an honor to interview him, and I hope that I've done a good job relating what he told me to the readers of Operation Gadget.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer reported that Day 8 of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope saw the team riding through Tropical Storm Tammy as they passed through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina:

When Team D approached Greenville, SC at midnight last night they got their biggest surpise of the Tour yet. As the rain came down and they were basically alone on the road with their immediate support staff, up rolled none other than Lance Armstrong and his Discovery Channel teammate George Hincapie! The duo rode with the squad into George's adopted hometown, and Team D will have a "war story" to tell for the rest of their lives.

[ Registration required to view most articles on ThePaceline.com ]

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Please take a moment to remember Newtown Borough Police Officer Brian S. Gregg, who was killed on September 29, 2005. I believe that he was the first police officer from Newtown Borough or Township ever killed in the line of duty.

Kathleen and I have lived in Newtown, Pennsylvania since July, and Officer Gregg was one of four full-time officers in our little town. We often forget that being a police officer is dangerous work, but it's easy to remember that if you're passing through Newtown today.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer wrote an article on The Paceline about following the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope National Team during Day 7 of their ride across the United States. The most interesting part of this article for Operation Gadget readers is Chris' description of the communications technology that Trek Travel has implemented to keep the Tour of Hope in contact with itself and the rest of the world:

It was a unique experience to witness the behind-the-scenes action from the CentCom {Tour of Hope command vehicle} perspective. Trek Travel makes sure that a fresh driver is piloting every vehicle each stage, and then several Trek Travel / Carmichael Training Systems managers take alternate shifts coordinating each stage's transition and execution. For the CentCom staff it's all about communication involving 2 cell phones, 1 satellite phone, 2 close-range radios, a GPS messaging system, and a laptop computer with a GPS mapping system. Add in numerous documents, route guides, maps, etc. and the Centcom staff is in-touch and in constant operational management mode around the clock.

Carmichael Training Systems also deserves a lot of credit for how smoothly the Tour of Hope National Ride has gone so far.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are the latest forecasts for The Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope's Baltimore to Washington, DC Fundraising Ride on Saturday, October 8, 2005:

• Weather.com: "Mainly cloudy and rainy. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the mid 50s."
• AccuWeather: "Rain. Winds from the W at 9 mph." Amount of precipitation expected to be 0.8 inches.
• National Weather Service: "Showers likely, mainly before 9am. Cloudy, with a high around 68. Northwest wind between 10 and 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible."

Definitely bring the rain gear.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen hasn't been feeling too good in the past few days, but on the way home from our weekend trip to visit friends in Boston, she planned my week leading up to Saturday's Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride. She told me, "You have to ref on Wednesday night, so you need to do your long route on Tuesday and Thursday this week in order to be ready for Saturday."

This was going to be a challenge for the following reasons:

1. At work, Weblog Improvement, I'm very close to finishing a major new weblog for Chris Nolan, a journalist based in San Francisco, and her co-bloggers.
2. On the bike, I've had equipment problems lately {flat tire, chain problems} that the folks at Newtown Bicycle and Fitness have been helping me work out.
3. Due to a combination of a lot of things, I haven't ridden my 23-mile route since August 14. Instead I've been riding mainly 10 to 15 mile routes right around Newtown.

All along my route today, I was worried about making the cutoff time for the 50-mile ride on Saturday. Over the 50-mile course, we have to maintain a speed of 14 miles per hour. I finished my 23-mile ride today in 1 hour 32 minutes 46 seconds at an average speed of 15.4 miles per hour.

Performance Forte Team MTB Pedal Mud-shedding alloy body, dual-sided entry, dual-force retention spring with adjustable entry/release tension. 4 degrees float. Compatible with Shimano SPD cleats. Wt: 370g/pr.

What I found most interesting about my ride today was that I shaved 10 minutes off my best time this Summer and I haven't been riding this distance as often as I should. The best explanation I can come up with for this success is my vastly improved equipment. I believe we're seeing the first indication of how much Performance Forte Team MTB Clipless Pedals and Perl Izumi Vagabond II MTB Shoes improve my riding. That 10 minute savings is between 10 and 11 percent of my previous ride time. That's pretty huge when you consider that the cost of that improvement was only about $80.

Read on for some information about my 23-mile training route and why it's probably more intense than either half of the Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride that I'm doing on Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

I've never gone into tremendous detail about this course, but I've finally mapped it using Gmaps Pedometer so readers can get a feel for how I've been training.

Lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania is known for its rolling terrain. This route which follows a mixture of secondary roads and undivided two lane Pennsylvania State Highways stretches the definition of rolling just a bit. Over the entire 23-mile route (37 kilometer), the ascent is 1119 feet (341 meters). This includes a climb where 285 feet is gained in 1.5 miles (near the junction of Pennsylvania Routes 232 and 32 just south of New Hope). This is a 4.8-percent grade, which might be a Category 4 or 3 climb in a UCI race, depending on how the judges felt about it.

I suspect that the 50 mile course on Saturday will not be as hilly as my 23 mile course, although it will be slightly more than twice as long. I hope to be able to ride at well over 15 miles per hour for the first 25 miles. If I succeed, I should be at the halfway point of the ride by 1 hour 37 minutes into the ride (or better). This leaves me two hours to complete the remaining 25 miles, of which 10 will be ridden at a slower speed because our ride will merge with the more leisurely-paced 10-mile ride at Glen Echo Park.

I want to thank Kathleen for making me commit to getting this ride in today. I'm now a lot more relaxed about my readiness for the 50 mile ride on Saturday. I'll try to get out on Thursday for another crack at the 23-mile course. I hope to finish in about the same time as I did today.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today I received the following email from my friend Cecil Ledesma who is riding with me in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to DC Fundraising Ride:

I wanted to see if you received your official rider # and packet in the mail. I have not. Should I be worried?

Kathleen and I were returning home from a weekend in Boston, so I hadn't seen what arrived at our place on Saturday. I told Cecil that I had exchanged emails with a Tour of Hope organizer who told me that the rider information packets were being mailed at the end of last week.

When we arrived home at about 4:00pm today, we found an envelope addressed to me from the Tour of Hope which had been sent from Trenton, NJ (about 10 miles from our house). This contained a 13-page magazine that says 2005 Registration Packet on it.

Last year, DC Fundraising Riders received a lot more stuff in the pre-ride mailing. This year, they only sent us the informational booklet. I guess this means that there will be a lot more to pickup at the Packet Pickup that will take place at the JW Marriott in Washington on Friday or at Howard County Community College on Saturday (beginning at 5:00am).

My wife and I will have to adjust our strategy at the start this year. We have to arrive earlier and she will have to park the car, because my jersey will not have a number affixed to it before I arrive. I'll probably want her to take some of the stuff they give me at the Packet Pickup, so I'll have to go register and come back to the car. It almost makes me wish I had time to go into Washington on Friday night to pickup my packet at the hotel.

In any event, if you are riding on Saturday and you haven't received your Rider Information Packet, you should be receiving it in the next couple of days.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just checked the forecast for Washington, DC on several different weather services for Saturday's Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Baltimore to Washington, DC Fundraising Ride. With five days to go, there is some disagreement in what the weather conditions will be:

• Weather.com: Showers, between 47 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, chance of precipitation 60%
• Accuweather: "Clouds giving way to some sun", high of 64 degrees Fahrenheit, winds out of the North Northwest at 16 miles per hour with gusts up to 32
• National Weather Service: "A chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a high around 61. Chance of precipitation is 30%."

Let's hope for no rain and light winds, but start thinking about what we'll do (how we'll dress, what our family members will wear, etc.) if it's raining on Saturday.

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)