Belief fuels passion, and passion rarely fails

[Jeff Gross]

Pre-ride Bike Tip: CO2 inflators.

If you insist on using a CO2 inflator, learn to use it. Practice before you need it. Yes, it will cost you a buck, but that is the price one pays for convenience. Do not let yourself get stranded because your CO2 all leaked out when you fumbled with the lever.

• Remember the three steps to mounting the tube and tire: Put the tube in the tire. Put the tube on the rim. Put the tire on the rim.
• Install the CO2 cartridge in the inflator and tighten really tight, like you are trying to twist off a beer cap. You may not hear or feel it puncture. Novices will test with a blast of CO2 to make sure, and they will not have enough left to inflate their tires. That will not happen to you, because you are practicing now.
• Install the inflator on the valve stem. Some screw on, some press on. The screw on ones are more reliable, and with CO2, reliability is important.
• Release the CO2. Release it all. No need to hesitate. You need it all.
• A small 12 gram CO2 will inflate a 700x23 tire to 80 PSI. A large CO2 will fully inflate a mountain bike tire. In my demonstration, the tire only inflated to 60 PSI. It must have been a poorly loaded CO2 cartridge, because in tests at home both before and after the ride, I got 80 PSI both times. Tony got 100 PSI using a hand pump during the ride.
• Buy your CO2 in bulk at the gun counter of a sporting goods store for about a dollar each.
• If you are flying with your bike, you cannot take CO2 on a plane.

ADULT TRUTHES:  Bad decisions make good stories



Laser Lights Self-Propelled Bike Lane

At the last NCCC board of directors meeting, Karl showed off the latest bike nerd must-have. This tail light uses lasers beams to draw a bike lane alongside your bike. $34 Xfire Laser Taillight at ModernBike.com. Kind of a clunky light, and the lines are not super bright, but it will amaze your friends. It amazed me!

ADULT TRUTHES:  Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.



ADULT TRUTHES:  I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Is Bicycling too Extreme?

It is the second anniversary of my last bicycle crash that broke my collarbone. I was descending the Torrey Pines bridge and I hit the curb. It was pitch dark at 5 AM, on my way to coach Masters swimming at UCSD, and I could see the headlights of a car approaching from behind. I am paranoid about my nighttime visibility. Equipped with every form of reflectivity and wattage, I know I must stand out like a beacon, yet I still moved instinctively to the right side of the road. It is just what I warn my NCCC bike club riders not to do! Take the lane, Jeff. The bridge was under reconstruction (and still is), and the pavement edge markings had just been painted black to narrow the lanes to the minimum, certainly no place to move out of the center of the road to let a car try to pass. The loss of the shoulder markings as my trusted guide disoriented me, and as the car passed me, I kept moving right. At 25 mph, my wheels scraped against the raised sidewalk and down I went. The car drove merrily on, possibly unaware of my fall. My shoulder hurt, but I got back on my bike and rode the final 3 miles to the UCSD. Luckily for me, an orthopedic surgeon is a regular swimmer on the team. After surgery, it took a year to heal, and I still have a metal plate screwed into my bone.

I estimate I fall down every 20,000 miles / 2 years. Make no doubt; bicycling on public roads is an extreme sport. So why risk it? I bicycle for exercise, freedom and fun. Hey, isn’t that just another way of saying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Cycling exercises not just muscles but also mental alertness. It requires pacing and toughness, but also constant attention to constantly changing threats and choices. That focus on the present is a sort of meditation that eliminates distracting thoughts.

Cycling gives me the freedom of mobility under my own power. When I got my first bike, the whole world opened up â€" or at least in the limits of where my mother would allow. I could go wherever I wanted without dependence on anyone or anything. As an avid bike commuter, I also like the freedom from cars. Every time I get somewhere on my bike, it is my way to protest our addiction to fossil fuels. We live a brief Age of Oil (circa 1900 â€" 2100), and the world suffers.

Bicycling is fun, a positive affirmation of life. It keeps me balanced in more ways than gyroscopically. I could live in paralyzing paranoia about the dangers, but being safe is a state of mind. Fear is conditioned in or conditioned out by how we choose to see the world. A little bit of fear when one pushes the envelope is called a thrill.

ADULT TRUTHES:  Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.



Encinitas Joy Ride
There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony, celebratory ride and festivities for the new bike friendly road signage in Encinitas.

• Peg D, NCCC club President, will lead a ride from OCRR to the Encinitas Joy Ride. Stay tuned for details.
  
• Starting at Leucadia Roadside Park - Coast Hwy 101 and Leucadia Blvd
• Saturday March 23
• 11:30 AM
• Ride North to La Costa, then South to Swamis, and back to the start.
• Pick up raffle tickets along the way
• Event ends at 3PM
• https://www.facebook.com/events/215515451924634/

ADULT TRUTHES:  Was learning cursive really necessary?

How Caffeine Fights Cancer
by Jef Akst


Epidemiological studies have shown that drinking caffeinated beverages reduces one’s chances of developing some types of cancer, including UV-associated skin cancer. Now, researchers propose a possible mechanism for this observationâ€"the inhibition of a DNA repair pathway that sensitizes cells to death after sun exposure.
The results, published today (August 15) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lend support to the idea that caffeine could be added to sunblock to increase its protective effects.
“At the cellular level, they’re showing that caffeine…is working in this way of inducing an apoptotic mechanism,” said cancer epidemiologist Joanne Kotsopoulos of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. “It’s biologically plausible, and it has good implications” for potential skin cancer preventionstrategies.
Several epidemiologic studies have suggested that coffee and tea drinkers are at a decreased risk for a variety of human cancers, including UV-associated skin cancer. A 2007 study of nearly 94,000 women, for example, found that woman who drank caffeinated coffee on a daily basis had a 10 percent lower risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer. Six or more cups of coffee a day translated to a 30 percent reduction in risk. Mouse studies have also confirmed the link, with both ingested and topically-applied caffeine lowering skin cancer rates in the animals. But exactly how the stimulant protected against cancer remained mysterious.
One possibility is the drug’s inhibition of ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR), a large protein kinase that senses incomplete DNA replicationâ€"often a result of DNA damageâ€"and signals the cell to not divide. By inhibiting ATR activity, caffeine could make cells more likely to die in response to UV damage, preventing damaged cells from ever becoming cancerous.  The caffeine molecule itself is also known to act as a sunscreen, blocking the penetration of UV rays, Nghiem said. “Therefore adding it to sunscreens may make sense for two reasonsâ€"it’s directly a sunscreen, and completely independently, it has this effect on ATR.”
There are still some remaining questions and studies to be done, such as actually applying caffeine to the mice’s skin and seeing if it confers additional cancer protection. “I think there’s good potential to keep investigating this,” Kotsopoulos said. “I mean, how easy would that be? To formulate [caffeine] into existing sunscreens as an additive?”
Alternatively, a drug other than caffeine that targets ATR may be used, said biophysicist Douglas Brash of YaleUniversity’s School of Medicine. “Caffeine was an interesting historical way of discovering this mechanism,” he said, “but now that we know the mechanism…maybe we hunt for some other drug that’s more specific.” Indeed, drugs that target the ATR pathway are currently in clinical trials for solid cancers, in combination with DNA damaging drugs. Given the results of the new study, such drugs may be able to be repurposed to fight skin cancer as well, Brash said.
ADULT TRUTHES:  I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

Housing Recovery Avoids Living Within Our Means

The current real estate recovery is being driven less by the working of a free market and more by the actions of the FED - including very low interest rates, new rules that let banks withold REO inventory from the marketplace, and massive injections of money into the economy. How will the national debt be resolved? The Fed will not do anything that will hurt the US standard of living, such as serious austerity measures, because that would be political suicide. Instead, policy makers will sacrifice the dollar. There will be more deficit spending, money printing and bank bailouts, leading to major inflation and devalued dollars. This economic binge means that housing prices are likely to continue to go higher in 2013, maybe longer.

ADULT TRUTHES:  There is great need for a sarcasm font.

Bike lots,
Jeff Gross
jeff@fullcommitment.com