• Ode To A Burrito -- Chipotle Mexican Grill on Fast Company: "Good food wrapped in a socially responsible message has created legions of Chipotle fans -- and a superhot business. Acquired by McDonald's in 1998 when there were only 14 Chipotles, the company went public in 2006 with 500 stores and watched its stock rise from $22 to $110 in 18 months. The now-independent outfit is enjoying an 80% revenue run-up over three years....

  "Chipotle has achieved these impressive stats by spurning fast-food orthodoxy. Workers make each burrito by hand, which leads to long lines of customers waiting far beyond the four-minute industry standard. Turns out, that's not a problem for many customers." There aren't many Chipotles in Pennsylvania, but one just opened in Warrington, in the same complex with one of our two closest Wegman's. Why can't we eat there more often? [ via 37signals SVN ]
• Forwarding voicemails? on 37signals SVN: "Visual Voicemail on the iPhone is a huge step forward for voicemail, but it still feels a bit last generation. It’s still about the static message that sits in your box. You can’t forward it along, you can’t email it to yourself, you can’t even play it to someone else who’s on the phone with you." Great points.
• 15 Features of the Perfect Work Space on LifeDev: "8. No clutter - Clutter is an aesthetic problem as well as a mental problem. Cluttered work spaces give create cluttered thinking. Your mind will never be as clear as it could be with a messy, unorganized environment. This also includes your desktop clutter as well." My only question about the article is: why is "no clutter" feature number 8 and not higher on the list?
• Household: De-Clutter with a Six-Month "Maybe Box" on Lifehacker: "I can vouch for the power of hidden non-necessities. My garage has served as a de facto "Maybe" space for most of this winter, leading my house toward a serious garage sale this spring."
• The Cost of Working In a Digital World on LifeDev: "A very important article has been written by The New York Times showing the hazards of being a web worker. Without boundaries and carefult attention to our Internet usage, we can quickly find our health declining. Prolific blogger Om Malik, who suffered some life-threatening health problems late last year, shares some insights his doctor gave as to why web workers have health problems."
• #1 Song on This Date in History from Josh Hosler: "What was the #1 song on ... the day you were born? the day you graduated from high school? the day you were married? the day your child was born? the approximate date you were conceived?" Awesome site. [ via Pogue's Posts and Alltop Gadgets ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Big hockey weekend: This weekend the USA Hockey Women's Nationals are taking place in West Chester, PA, the USA Hockey Tier III Junior Nationals are in Marlboro, MA, and the NCAA D-I Men's Hockey Regional Tournaments are on in four cities around the country. More hockey tournament info on rinkatlas.com/blog.
• Yes, Running Can Make You High - New York Times in The New York Times: "Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect." [ via Lifehacker ]
• New Jersey Apple Store ready to open on TUAW: "Doesn't 'Cherry Hill' sound lovely? It will sound even sweeter for Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based Apple fans this weekend when a new Apple Store opens {at Cherry Hill Mall}, next to A|X Armani Exchange and M•A•C Cosmetics (that's right, a Mac store next to a MAC store). The doors will open at 10:00 AM on Saturday, March 29th." Cherry Hill will probably be lovely again, as soon as they finish building the Nordstrom's.
• Wi-Fi Networking News: Sebastopol, Calif., Looks Gift Wi-Fi in Mouth, Declares Harm on Wi-Fi Net News: "The northern peninsula town of Sebastopol gave up free Wi-Fi in favor of fear mongering...."
• Are CIOs Losing Influence? on The Wall Street Journal Biz Tech Blog: "...And in a sign that CIOs may know that fighting the influx of consumer technology into the workplace is futile, only 36% of CIOs say the computing environment they offer employees at work is better than the ones workers have at home." [ Thanks Martin O'Donnell ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Mac Automation: listen to a text document on TUAW: "Don't have time to read that Word, Pages, or TextEdit document at your desk? Why not listen to it on your iPod instead? In this Automator how-to, I am going to show you how to create an audio file using text that you have in an open document, then sync that using iTunes to your iPod or iPhone." This is similar to a how-to published in Macworld last month.
• Reliance Digital to Open 60 iStores Across India on Tech2.com: "Reliance Digital... plans to open 150 digital stores and 60 iStores or Apple stores across {India}. While {typical Reliance Digital} stores offer a wide range of consumer durables, iStores are exclusively for Apple's products for professional and consumer segments."
• Time Machine Now Works with Airport Extreme USB Drives on MacRumors.com: "After the release of today's Time Machine and Airport update, several readers report that Time Machine now supports backups to USB drives connected to your Airport Extreme basestation. This configuration essentially reproduces the functionality of Apple's Time Capsule product."
• Shimano buys clothing company Pearl Izumi from Nautilus on VeloNews: "Bringing premium sports apparel and footwear to its offering of industry-leading cycling and fishing products, Shimano has completed its purchase of DashAmerica, Inc. (dba Pearl Izumi USA, Inc.) from Nautilus, Inc." This actually happened a month ago, but I just noticed it.
• The Feedzone with Monique Ryan: Protect your heart this season on VeloNews: This is a great article which focuses on eating the right kind of fats and other smart food choices as part of an athletic lifestyle.
• When to Stay With Windows in Mossberg's Mailbox on AllThingsD: Walt Mossberg talks about when it's OK to stay with Windows when upgrading home computers. A couple in their 70s asked if they should upgrade to a Mac although no family members have Macs, so family support wouldn't be available to them. He points out that it's OK to stay with Windows now, but the question will need to be re-evaluated sometime this sommer, when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP to OEMs for installation on new machines.

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

• An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up on NYTimes.com: "The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit." Doing push-ups is a habit I've been trying to get into. This article is a good reminder of why.
• Your Story: Throwing new tools at a communication problem? on 43Folders.com: "...The anecdotes I hear from worker bees often focus on the frustration they felt when a wiki, a new CMS, a mailing list, or some other tool was introduced into an ecosystem that was suffering from a more fundamental communication problem. A lot of people tell me that this makes matters much worse all around, often amplifying the complexity of the original problem, in addition to piling on burnt cycles that were committed on getting everyone up to speed on the new 'silver bullet....'" Oh the stories I could tell about a Wiki I once used....
• ExpanDrive on Daring Fireball: "ExpanDrive 1.01 is a new $29 file system extension for Mac OS X, based in part on MacFUSE, that lets you mount SFTP servers as volumes in the Finder. I’ve been using ExpanDrive for a week and it is extremely impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it for the Mac. Magnetk, the company behind ExpanDrive, has a similar product for Windows called SftpDrive that’s been around for a while."

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

• Apple introduces Aperture 2.0 on MacNN: "Apple on Tuesday released Aperture 2.0, a major revision of the company's professional photo editing and management application. The upgrade brings in a new, sleeker user interface that allows users to flip between Browser and Viewer modes with a single key press and a heads-up display that makes the most of the screen area while still allowing quick access to editing or navigation controls." This was the only change that Apple made at the Apple On-line Store today.
• 8 Tips For Using Running As a Productivity Booster on LifeDev: "There is a certain type of activity that is my absolute favorite for clearing the mind for some really productive thinking. It has the ultimate blend of physical activity, low mental resource usage, and a change of atmosphere. A perfect storm for some good ‘ol fashioned subconscious problem solving. Nothing adds a shot of productive thinking to the day like a spirited run."
• Make iMovie '08 find movies on other drives on MacOS X Hints: Using a symbolic directory link allows iMovie '08 to utilize movie content from secondary or external drives.
• {Leopard Update} 10.5.2 makes your {World of Warcraft} go faster on TUAW: "After hearing that the patch made reader Jason's Mac play faster, WoW Insider's Adam Holisky saw his FPS jump from 30 to 50 on his first-gen Intel iMac (he also has 2gb of RAM, and installed the graphics update with 10.5.2)."
• 30 Benefits of Ebooks from Epublishers Weekly: "Read an Ebook Week is a yearly event, and this year (2008) it runs from March 2 to March 8. To encourage the celebration of this little-known happening, here is our list of 30 Benefits of Ebooks. We love pbooks (paper books), and hope that they are never replaced by their electronic grandchildren. Yet ebooks are a worthy companion to their paper elders." [ via Lifehacker ]
• Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick on Lifehacker: "You don't have to lease server space or keep your home computer always on to access a personal web server—you can run a web, FTP, and database server straight from a USB drive. A slim web server package called XAMPP fits on a USB stick and can run database-driven webapps like the software that powers Wikipedia, MediaWiki. Almost two years ago you learned how to set up your "personal Wikipedia" on your home web server to capture ideas and track document revisions in a central knowledge repository. Today we'll set up MediaWiki on your flash drive for access on any Windows PC on the go." It's incredible that you can run MediaWiki on a thumb drive now.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sunday's New York Times had a terrific article about fighting a weight loss battle while working a full time job which resonates with me. What was most interesting was the fact that two of the three people profiled work at very athletically-oriented companies.

• Steve Madden, the editor of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines is 44 years old, 5-feet 10-inches tall, and weighs 198 pounds. In other words he's almost exactly my size.

  The shocker in this story is that Madden rode his bike 4,451 miles in 2007. No question that he could have journaled it all using a heart rate monitor like the one I use. How can you ride 85 miles per week, year round and not lose weight? I know. You eat what you want and never commit to a serious eating plan.

  There's no question that Madden is both fit and overweight, as I am at the moment. He demonstrates how far you can take this lifestyle as an amateur athlete.




• Marcello Aller, National Athletics Account Manager at Polar USA is 34 years old, 5-feet 8-inches tall, and weighs 218 pounds. He says:

  My colleagues think I look fine, but it’s become more of a challenge to become lean.... I’m not an endurance athlete, like a small cyclist or a runner. I have a typical, square football-player build. Sometimes it’s more difficult to regain a hard body; my metabolism has changed with age.

  Aller is an inch shorter than I am and weighs over 20 pounds more than I do. I weighed this much when I worked on Wall Street. He needs to realize that he'll have to both change his diet and work out in order to achieve the results he wants.

  I think a warning sign in his behavior is that he thinks his metabolism has changed at age 34. This may be the case to a small extent, but he'll do a lot better if he admits that the quantity and type of food he eats is a substantial part of the problem.

These two men work at athletic lifestyle companies where it should be easy for people to lose weight, keep the weight off, and stay in shape. Yet, it's obvious that doing the right things is not as easy as it should be. Most overweight people cannot lose weight by exercise alone. They have to watch what they eat and control the size of their meals and snacks. That's the key to achieving significant fitness and appearance goals.

I can completely relate to their situations. I can be an even better athlete if I have an eating plan. I made the commitment to plan what I eat again a couple of weeks ago. It's a struggle, but I hope to see the benefits by the end of the hockey season.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My father-in-law George Kuykendall pointed out an interesting article in The New York Times called The Bicycling Paradox: Fit Doesn’t Have to Mean Thin. It talks about the types of cyclists that go on European cycling trips that follow the route of The Tour de France and how older and/or heavier riders often turn out to be more successful than most people might expect. The article says:

... cycling is a lot more forgiving of body type and age than running. The best cyclists going up hills are those with the best weight-to-strength ratio, which generally means being thin and strong. But heavier cyclists go faster downhill. And being light does not help much on flat roads.

The article goes on to say that Dr. James Hagberg, a kinesiology professor at the University of Maryland, thinks that cycling is not as physically demanding as running. Anyone who uses a heart-rate monitor in their training can easily see this. There is a significant difference in average heart rate and estimated calories burned between running and cycling for 30 minutes.

This is a popular article in my office, where the all of the cyclists can more easily identify with Thor Hushovd than they can Michael Rasmussen, at least in terms of BMI .

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you live in an upper middle class or an even more exclusive area, you probably have neighbors who have a Toyota Prius or other types of hybrid automobiles. Most people know that these vehicles can run entirely on battery power under certain conditions, and in that situation, are extremely quiet.

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal entitled Blind Pedestrians Say Quiet Hybrids Pose Safety Threat got me thinking about my own safety when riding my road bike in this area. How am I supposed to know that a hybrid isn't overtaking me on a two-lane road if it's running on battery?

According to the article in The Wall Street Journal, the noise level of a Toyota Prius when accelerating under electric power is 53 decibels, while a conversation at home is about 50, and an operating vacuum cleaner is 70. If there's a cross or a head wind while I'm riding, it often limits my ability to hear vehicles behind me anyway. Think of the difficulty of hearing a hybrid approaching from behind you in those conditions.

Since people without subscriptions to the Journal will have difficulty reading this story, I'll quote the real-life scenario that begins the article, so you can see the real threat that is posed to blind people:

... Michael Osborn, a blind marketing consultant from Laguna Beach, Calif., and his guide dog, Hastings, were in the middle of an intersection one morning last April when the yellow Lab stopped short. Mr. Osborn took the cue and halted -- just in time to feel the breeze from a car passing right in front of them.

"Half an inch and it would have hit us ... it wasn't making any noise," says Mr. Osborn, 50, who has been blind for 12 years. Witnesses say the car was a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle....

My conclusion after reading this article and thinking about the implications for cyclists, runners and in-line skaters wearing their iPods, and for children playing near residential streets, is that the auto manufacturing and insurance industries and public safety agencies need to study the points made by the advocacy organizations representing blind people. I think they are on to something that will be a bigger concern to the general public in the future.

If you are a cyclist, are you concerned about hybrid vehicles passing you when you are riding alone? How are you protecting yourself? Does this concern affect group rides as well? [ Subscription usually required to read articles in The Wall Street Journal ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

I have good news to report on the rehabilitation of my left leg. (I broke my left fibula in a collision with a player during a hockey game that I was officiating on January 24.)

My trainers at NovaCare Rehabilitation have decided that I'm almost ready to stop physical therapy. I have two sessions left next week.

After that, I can use the three hours per week that I've been spending in their facility to build up my road biking mileage and possibly find some spring league hockey games to officiate.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'll be back on the ice today to officiate hockey for the first time since I broke my leg on January 24. I'll be officiating two games in the 2006 USA Hockey Disabled Hockey Festival at Iceland in West Chester, PA.

It's a real pleasure to have the opportunity to work this tournament. Officiating disabled hockey is one of the best ways I can think of to broaden the appeal of the sport. You have to see games like this in person to appreciate the positive attitude of the players, coaches, and spectators.

I hope that I'm able to officiate these games without too much pain or difficulty.

Update: I made it through two games without any problem. My ankle had more swelling in the evening than it's had in weeks, but I expected that. This was a good opportunity to get on the ice and provide some progress information to my trainers at physical therapy. Hopefully they will adjust my program so I do better next time.

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

On Sunday, I took out my in-line skates and skated around the industrial complex near our house in Newtown, PA. This was the first time I had been on skates since January 24 when I broke my left fibula while officiating a hockey game. My left ankle was noticeably more swollen than usual that night, but I felt like I could skate again on Monday if I wanted.

Monday was mostly sunny and 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius), so I decided to get my Trek 1500 road bike out for a short ride late in the afternoon. I rode 6.9 miles in 31 minutes and 7 seconds. It was great to get out there and see that I haven't entirely lost the ability to ride, although I've lost a lot of stamina over the past nine weeks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you who have been following my recovery from a broken left fibula, I saw my orthopedist today and I was cleared to resume physical activity. Surprisingly, this includes the opportunity to try skating again as soon as I want.

My wife Kathleen suggested that I find my in-line skates and start by trying to skate on them. I have to find them and see if the ball bearings and wheels are in good condition. If not, I can try going to a "public session" at a local rink or sneak on the ice after some hockey team finishes practicing. We'll see.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I was on the iTunes Music Store this morning, I noticed that a new series of podcasts called Podrunner has rapidly become one of the hottest podcast series over the past few weeks. dj steveboy, a Los Angeles-area disk jockey, has created three Podrunner podcasts he describes as "fast-paced, high-energy, one-hour workout mixes". He plans to create a new podcast every other week.

I listened to Mo Better Run, the first podcast in the Podrunner series, while working at my desk this morning. It's a tribal and progressive house tracks mix that maintains a fairly consistant 150 beats-per-minute. It would be great for runners, road cyclists doing tempo, or people doing treadmill or spinning workouts at the gym. In a way, it reminds me of Kraftwerk's Tour de France Soundtracks which I talked about in my iPod Cycling article back in July 2004.

dj steveboy's website says that Podrunner was number three on the iTunes Top 100 Music Downloads on March 12. In 72 hours ending at midnight March 12, almost 10,000 iTunes users had downloaded one of the podcasts in the series. I guess that shows that there are a lot of people who are looking for workout mixes.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, workout music, Podrunner, Video iPod, iTunes Music Store, podcast

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday Kathleen and I met with my orthopedist for the first time since my leg was put in a cast. The orthopedist had my cast removed and had my left leg x-rayed again. The x-rays showed that my fibula is healing, but hasn't yet healed 100 percent. The orthopedist decided not to put me in another cast, so I can start physical therapy.

We were all surprised at how swollen my lower leg was after the cast was removed. I knew that my leg was swelling intermittently while I had the cast on it. It's clear that the swelling I was feeling was when my calf was swelling near the top of the cast, and that my ankle and foot may have been swollen much more frequently than I thought.

I need to do two to three sessions of physical therapy per week for the next four weeks, in order to strengthen my leg and regain flexibility. After that, we will meet with the orthopedist again to see the fibula has fully healed and if I can start skating and cycling again.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You should see me trying to move around The Home Office since I got home from the orthopedist the other day. They fitted me for a walking cast which is a fiberglass cast from just below my left knee to the arch of my foot. I got a boot to put over the foot end of the cast so that I can walk on it.

The problem is that the cast protrudes underneath my foot further than the soles of any of my shoes. I hobble worse with the cast on my leg than I did before I knew that I had broken my fibula. The problem is more annoying when my right foot doesn't have a shoe on it at all.

I told Chris Nolan this story and she suggested that I get a cane.

A relative who wants to remain nameless (because people at work discovered prior references to him on Operation Gadget and started discussing his life outside of work) is bringing a couple of canes over here this afternoon for me to try. I'll try to report on whether either of them help me to more effectively move around the house.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got injured last night while officiating a high school ice hockey game. The athletic trainer who was covering the game came into the officials' locker room during the intermission between the second and third period, evaluated me, and said that I may have a high ankle sprain, which is a syndesmotic ligament injury. This is not your garden-variety ankle sprain. If I have this injury, it may take me a while to recover from it.

I injured my left leg, so I was able to drive myself home from the rink. That's good because I was 65 miles from home and Kathleen was working last night. I rested and iced my leg last night and slept pretty well.

Now that I'm up this morning, I find that my leg is rather stiff. It's not impossible for me to move around, but I'm limping at least as badly as I was last night.

Kathleen is a pediatrician. She read her orthopedics books and some on-line resources last night and concluded that I should probably get an x-ray and an evaluation by an othopedist or a sports-medicine doctor. I'm calling my doctor's office when it opens to ask whether they think I should go to the Emergency Room or if they will give me a referral to see an orthopedist at this point.

I'll provide an update on my condition after someone who deals with injuries like this takes a look at me.

Update: After 10 hours of trips between my regular doctor, a radiologist, and an orthopedist, Kathleen and I are back and I have a walking cast on my left leg. I broke the left fibula between my knee and ankle.

The orthopedist says that I can be out of this cast in four weeks. After that, I will do some physical therapy to get back some of the strength and flexibility that I will lose over the next month. I hope that I can go back to my normal activities in about six weeks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

I picked up my Trek 1500 a week ago and so far I've ridden it 71.2 miles (115 km). That's a lot of riding when you consider that I live in the Northeastern United States and it's the last week of December.

I love the way the Trek 1500 rides. It's a lot easier to get moving than any other bike I've ridden. It's also very maneuverable and feels rock solid underneath me. It's hard to believe I'm riding 700x25 tires.

I rode 48.3 miles in the last two days on two of my favorite routes: the 23-mile Newtown-New Hope Route that I spoke about in an article about pre-Tour of Hope training back in October and The East Windsor-Millstone Route that I used to prepare for the 2004 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope. These are great routes but they are hard to ride in windy conditions, and it's been pretty windy around here in the last few days.

I've been looking for noticeable time differences between the rides on the Trek 1500 and rides over the same routes on my Marin Bear Valley SE. I haven't seen anything significant so far. There are probably two reasons for this:

1. I haven't been riding much since the ice hockey regular season started. I've officiated 58 games since Labor Day and I haven't ridden much as a result. (I think my officiating last season also complemented my cycling more than it has this year, mainly because the role of referee requires more endurance and continuous motion than does my current role as an assistant referee / linesman.)
2. I hardly ever ride in such windy conditions during the main cycling season. On December 27, I experienced northwest winds of 22 miles per hour with gusts up to 30. Yesterday there was less wind: it was from the south at 13 miles per hour with gusts up to 16.

Right before Christmas I got a call from Cecil Ledesma, my friend who rode with me in the 2004 Tour of Hope. He wanted to know how I felt about riding the Trek 1500 and at the time, I had only ridden about 7 miles on it. Now that I've ridden over 70, I think that this bike is fantastic. It will help me to get to the next level in terms of my cycling training.

I'm planning to go back to Jay's Cycles next week for a more exact bike fitting. I also want to make sure that the bike is properly adjusted, particularly in terms of the brakes, shifters, and derailleurs.

Technorati Tags: Trek 1500, road bike, Tour of Hope, cycling, Trek, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Trek 1500 Road Bike: Members of my
family contributed to a fund so I could
get this bike for a combined birthday
and Christmas gift. [ Photo: Trek Bicycle
Corporation ]

One reason that you haven't heard much from me in the last few days is that I've been shopping for a new road bike to ride in the 2006 cycling season. If you've read Operation Gadget for a while, you probably know that I like to participate in endurance cycling events and occasional duathlons, and I trained extensively for the 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride.

As the events I've trained for involve more mileage, it's become increasingly clear that I needed to switch from a mountain bike to a road bike. My wife Kathleen decided that this year was the best opportunity we would have for some time to get a good road bike for me, so she told my friends and family that she was starting Dave's Road Bike Fund and invited them to contribute to it for my birthday and Christmas.

I didn't know anything about this, so I was loading up my wishlist at Amazon.com with a Video iPod and accessories for it.

When the surprise was sprung on me three weeks ago, my initial reaction was: Oh boy, now I can get an iPod and a road bike. Reality set in when I looked at how much money I would need to buy both without making significant compromises in iPod capacity or road bike performance.

I decided to buy a Trek 1500, the top-of-the line model in their Alpha Aluminum line. The suggested retail price of this bike is $1150 and I paid somewhat less than that at the dealer I chose, Jay's Cycles in Princeton, NJ. Trek makes a lot more expensive bikes, but, I felt that the 1500 was a good combination of price and performance for someone making the transition from mountain to road biking at my skill and training level.

I also want to say that my decision to purchase a Trek was heavily influenced by my experience covering the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team during 2005. My friend Bruce Turner from AMD put me in touch with some people at Trek like Michael Sagan who really believe in the products they make. I was able to learn a bit about Trek's design approach for pro-caliber bikes, embodied in the F-One partnership with other Discovery Team sponsors, and how that's improved Trek's bikes that I can afford. I felt that the 1500 was the right bike for me at this point in my life-- the full carbon fiber bikes will have to wait.

I'm planning to pick up my new bike tomorrow and I hope to be able to post some up-close photos of it within a few days. I rode it for about 10 minutes before I bought it, but I'm hoping for good weather, strong sun, and light winds one day before Christmas so I can get a longer ride in and post an article about the experience.

Technorati Tags: Trek 1500, Video iPod, road bike, Tour of Hope, cycling, Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, Trek, AMD, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

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

Continue reading "23-Mile Pre-Tour of Hope Ride Proves the Value of Inexpensive Bike Upgrades" »

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

Last week I took advantage of a great sale and bought a pair of Peformance Forte Team Mountain Bike Pedals and Pearl Izumi Vagabond Mountain II cleated shoes from Performance Bike. Up to now, I've been riding with pedals that have toe clips on them, which I knew was taking away from my biomechanical efficiency.

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.

I've wanted to make the switch for a long time, but I've always been concerned about the process of acclimating myself to clicking my shoes into pedals that act very much like ski bindings. When I use toe clips, it's easy to pull my feet off the pedals. The clipless pedals, however, require you to turn your foot at the heel so that the cleat on the bottom of the shoe rotates and clicks out of the binding mechanism. You have to do this at a point in the pedal rotation where you have little or no weight on the pedal you are trying to detach from. You can fall if you fail to detach your foot properly.

I installed the pedals yesterday, put on the shoes, and rode around on the grass in my back yard, trying to master the process of clicking my shoes in and out of the pedals. I only fell once.

Today I went on my first long ride with the shoes and pedals. I rode 15.6 miles in 1 hour 6 minutes 7 seconds. I don't think I've been this nervous on a bike since I was a kid. The sensation of having my feet locked to the pedals didn't feel too weird while I was riding at a normal speed, but at times when I was braking and I needed to put my foot on the ground I felt a momentary sense of panic. This happened two or three times on the ride-- but I didn't crash.

I now realize why so many road bikers break collarbones while riding. They get themselves locked into their pedals and have difficulty getting out of them in emergency situations that call for deft bike handling.

I need to do much more riding over the next two weeks. If I'm able to do it, I'm sure I'll lose the nervousness I feel before I ride in The Tour of Hope Washington DC Fundraising Ride.

Technorati Tags: Tour of Hope

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quick summary of the workouts that I did last week:

• Monday, September 12: Biked 9.9 miles in 45 minutes 2 seconds; Biked 4.6 miles in 23 minutes 6 seconds.
• Tuesday, September 13: Rest.
• Wednesday, September 14: Busy.
• Thursday, September 15: Played volleyball for 1 hour 56 minutes 41 seconds.
• Friday, September 16: Travelling.
• Saturday, September 17: Officiated hockey for 1 hour 42 minutes 58 seconds.
• Sunday, September 11: Officiated hockey for 39 minute 37 seconds; Officiated hockey for 1 hour 47 minutes 39 seconds.

This week I spent a lot more time on office work than I have recently. I also spent part of Thursday and all of Friday in the Washington, DC area at a family-related event.

Kathleen and I also began participating in a recreational volleyball league on Thursday. This is the first time I've played volleyball regularly, so we'll see if I can improve with practice.

For the week, I exercised for 6 hours 51 minutes, burning 4,524 calories, and covering a total of 9.9 miles on my bike.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quick summary of the workouts that I did last week:

• Monday, September 5: Biked 6.0 miles in 28 minutes 49 seconds; Biked 4.6 miles in 23 minutes 6 seconds.
• Tuesday, September 6: Rest.
• Wednesday, September 7: Biked 15.5 miles in 1 hour 3 minutes 23 seconds.
• Thursday, September 8: Biked 10.8 miles in 50 minutes 56 seconds.
• Friday, September 9: Officiated hockey for 1 hour 5 minutes 21 seconds; Officiated hockey for 1 hour 10 minutes 54 seconds; Officiated hockey for 56 minutes 59 seconds.
• Saturday, September 10: Officiated hockey for 1 hour 26 minutes 29 seconds; Officiated hockey for 1 hour 0 minutes 45 seconds.
• Sunday, September 11: Officiated hockey for 2 hours 1 minute 9 seconds.

This week I officiated 6 hockey games in 3 days. On Friday and Saturday, I officiated at the International Silver Sticks Regional Tournament in West Chester, PA. On Sunday, I officiated my first Junior B level game of the 2005-6 season as a linesman.

For the week, I exercised for 10 hours 27 minutes, burning 8,014 calories, and covering a total of 36.9 miles on my bike.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quick summary of the workouts that I did last week:

• Monday, August 29: Biked 10.2 miles in 41 minutes 11 seconds.
• Tuesday, August 30: Rest.
• Wednesday, August 31: Biked 10.2 miles in 42 minutes 3 seconds.
• Thursday, September 1: Biked 10.2 miles in 42 minutes 41 seconds.
• Friday, September 2: Busy.
• Saturday, September 3: Worked in the yard for 2 hours 56 minutes 5 seconds.
• Sunday, September 4: Worked in the yard for 37 minutes 14 seconds.

This week I didn't have any hockey games due to the Labor Day holiday. Instead I did a considerable amount of yard work on the weekend.

For the week, I exercised for 5 hours 39 minutes, burning 3,297 calories, and covering a total of 30.6 miles on my bike.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quick summary of the workouts that I did last week:

• Monday, August 22: Biked 10.6 miles in 52 minutes 29 seconds.
• Tuesday, August 23: Biked 10.4 miles in 44 minutes 4 seconds.
• Wednesday, August 24: Biked 10.6 miles in 51 minutes 3 seconds.
• Thursday, August 25: Rest.
• Friday, August 26: Mowed lawn for 1 hour 43 minutes 1 seconds.
• Saturday, August 27: Officiated hockey for 1 minutes 47 seconds 4 seconds; Officiated hockey for 1 hour 41 minutes 6 seconds.
• Sunday, August 28: Officiated hockey for 1 hour 6 minutes 33 seconds.

This week hockey got underway in a pretty significant way for me. Early in the week, I got three 10 mile bike rides in, then rested on Thursday because I knew the rest of the week was going to be intense. I did my usual lawn maintenance tasks on Friday.

I officiated in a Junior hockey tournament in Exton, PA on Saturday. I refereed the first game and worked as a linesman in the second. On Sunday, I participated in the annual USA Hockey Level 4 Officiating Training Seminar put on by the Atlantic Amateur Hockey Association. In order to maintain my certification as a referee at the Junior age level and qualify to participate as a referee in a USA Hockey National Championship, each year I must attend a Level 4 officiating training seminar each year and pass graded skating proficiency and rules knowledge test.

For the week, I exercised for 8 hours 45 minutes burning 6,893 calories, and covering a total of 31.4 miles on my bike. This is about the same number of miles on the bike as last week, but the number of calories burned in exercise doubled. This is an indication of why I need to increase the intensity and duration of my training for the first few weeks of September.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VeloACE: An Open Source Bike
Computer System for PalmOS.
For when you absolutely
want to have your bike
speedometer be a PDA.
[ Image: Mark Hammerling ]

Sammy and the other folks over at PalmAddict don't normally scoop us on fitness gadget news, but you'll see why they did in a moment. One of their readers tipped them off to VeloACE, an open source bike computer software project for the PalmOS.

I think this is an interesting proof of concept, but I honestly have no idea what would motivate a cyclist to use this program unless he or she was also the biggest Palm geek in the world. I can't imagine mounting a Palm IIIx or Palm IIIxe to my bike handle bars as suggested, then installing a wired wheel sensor. The late model Palm's aren't water-resistant by any stretch of the imagination.

I think it's amazing that someone wrote a bike computer PalmOS application. It certainly illustrates the bredth of third-party software offerings for Palm handhelds, but a solution like this belongs in Make.

I realize that a program like this is going to intrigue some people. If you're interested in comparing VeloACE's feature set to the kind of technology available in gadgets designed from the outset to be used as bike computers, check out these devices:

• Polar S625x: more of a running computer than a bike computer. Includes a heart rate monitor wrist receiver and chest transmitter, training log software for a PC, and a weather-resistant foot pod for measuring running distances. Add a Polar Cycling Speed Sensor and a Polar Bike Mount Kit and you've got a computer suitable for running or biking.
• Garmin Forerunner 301: a GPS-based biking or running computer that includes a heart rate monitor. Great for creating maps of training runs and rides. Also includes training log software. Get the Garmin Forerunner 201 if you don't need/want the HRM.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Heart Rate Chart from Training Log: Here is the heart
rate chart for a game I refereed in the Chicago
Showcase. Click on the chart to see a larger view.
[ Image: Polar Precision Performance Software ]

See more Chicago Showcase exercise data in the
Operation Gadget Photo Gallery.

Regular readers of Operation Gadget know that I was on the ice officiating hockey this weekend for the first time since April. Just like any athlete in the preseason, I saw how far below my end of season peak fitness level I am now.

The hockey season will begin after Labor Day, with the intensity of competition increasing steadily over the month of September. Most competitive leagues in this area will begin their regular seasons between September 15 and November 15. As a hockey official, I need to increase my training effort now to be ready for the intensity of regular season games.

I went out for a 10-mile bike ride on Monday night into the Tyler State Park in Newtown Township, PA. I rode as hard as I could for much of the ride and got my heart rate up to an average of 145 beats per minute. That's at the lower end of the average heart rate range that I need to achieve.

I'm able to make judgements like these because I use a Polar S625x Heart Rate Monitor and I upload all of the performance data into Polar Precision Performance Software. As a result, I have performance data from most of the physical training I've done over the last few years, including the hockey games I've officiated.

This allows me to carefully tune my mountain biking workouts to simulate the kind of aerobic effort I'll need to be able to maintain to successfully officiate high level hockey games. In this article, I'll walk through my approach to planning workouts, and show how I determine whether a workout is helping me reach my training goals.

Continue reading "Developing a Workout Plan to Simulate the Effort of Other Athletic Performances" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a quick summary of the workouts that I did last week:

• Monday, August 15: Biked 10.2 miles in 59 minutes 34 seconds.
• Tuesday, August 16: Biked 10.4 miles in 47 minutes 13 seconds.
• Wednesday, August 17: Busy.
• Thursday, August 18: Biked 11.3 miles in 1 hour 4 minutes 7 seconds.
• Friday, August 19: Mowed lawn for 1 hour 48 minutes 11 seconds.
• Saturday, August 20: Officiated hockey for 31 minutes 41 seconds.
• Sunday, August 21: Busy.

This week I got three short bike rides in and got back on the ice to officiate part of a Junior-level ice hockey scrimmage. I would have gotten another ride in on Sunday, but I used the time to replace my tires instead.

For the week, I exercised for 5 hours 10 minutes burning 3,491 calories, and covering a total of 31.9 miles on my bike.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)