Historical Book about Ohio Geology with Local Info

Here's a link to The Devonian and Mississippian Formations of Northeast Ohio by Charles S. Prosser, published in 1912.

It goes into detail about the local geology, which is probably only interesting to a narrow audience, but also contains lots of narration about local things that are long gone. For example, my yard was an active sandstone quarry in 1912. The author gathered information by interviewing locals. Some of the landmarks described in the book are still around today.

Training with O2 Saturation

This past weekend, I was feeling nearly back to normal after surgery, and I was able to get out for a ride after a month of inactivity. I got out the pulse oximeter and went out on Sherman Road. I went West from Bass Lake Road and went hard up each hill. I hit the first little hill, and went at what I thought was a very hard pace. I stopped at the top and measured the O2 saturation--it barely budged from 98%. I wasn't really breathing hard, but I would have gauged the effort as "hard" based on my power output.

The second hill is much steeper, but it's pretty short. I drilled it so I was way anaerobic. I had the feeling of heaviness creep into my legs and shoulders and forearms. I stopped at the top and was gasping for air when I measured my blood's O2 saturation. Some O2 meters, apparently the one I have included, regard saturation below 92% as an error, so it didn't display anything until I recovered a little bit. That was probably one of the more intense efforts I've done on a bike.

I repeated the effort on the third hill and after that I was completely fried. I pedaled squares for the rest of the ride. I'm wondering what will happen if I do short sessions like that instead of the traditional longer tempo rides and intervals.

It really would be great to have the oxygen saturation statistic along with power output, heart rate, etc... The finger tip clip-on O2 meter is usable but very limited. There's still no "sports" O2 meter--the products that are on the market are for medical monitoring of people who are in bed. I am getting back to that project for this winter.

Middle Age of Oil

This post is a little bit off topic, but it's worth writing about.

The following chart is from the book Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak--it blew my mind. Note that the book was published in 2006 and these statistics fluctuate per year, so current figures are certainly different--though the proportions will be about the same.

Country	Production (millions of barrels/day)	Number of Wells
Saudi Arabia	7.7	1,560
Russia	7.4	41,192
USA	5.8	521,070

This chart prompted me to look at current data. Here's a chart compiled from data at the United States Government Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petrosystem/us_table.html) web site. This chart is based on 2009 statistics.

The 2009 average US production per well was 12.9 barrels per day (call it 13). The average well in Saudi Arabia (based on the 2006 book figures) produces 4,935 barrels per day. (A barrel, by the way, is 42 US gallons). If you want to increase oil production in the USA by 1 million barrels (and dent our need of 19 million barrels per day) you need to drill:

1 million / 13 bpd = 76,923 wells. Assuming a 100% success rate and the average production per well is about the same.

I wondered how shale oil production has changed the picture. North Dakota oil production is still climbing. Currently, the oil fields there produce more than 700,000 barrels of oil per day--around 3% of US daily oil consumption. (The US military uses somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 barrels per day.) However, the current average production per Bakken Shale well is around 140 barrels per day. So, to replace all foreign oil--let's call it 15 million barrels/day, you need to drill around:

15 million barrels per day / 140 barrels per day = 107,142 wells.

There are currently 4,458 wells in the ND Bakken shale (from here). Between 2010 and 2011 754 new oil producing wells were added. To drill 107,142 wells at that rate would take 142 years. (Of course, the oldest wells would be long depleted, plus you'd run out of places to drill!)

You can gaze into the future of ND oil production with the chart, below, from the EIA that shows Montana oil production per year. Montana oil production (from the same geological formation) boomed early in the 2000s, then production declined, and new drilling activity shifted to ND. Check out an animated GIF here.

If you remove the supply of cheap oil from the middle east, is it feasible to drill thousands of wells per year in places like North Dakota?

Unfortunately, it looks like we reached the beginning of the end of cheap oil from the middle east, and maybe we're already into a new era. I think the chart below (from here) sums up the story. The IEA (International Energy Agency) said we probably hit that peak in 2006. (that report predicts total oil production including sources like tar sands will peak in 2035.)

In spite of persistently high oil prices (especially up to the implosion of the real estate market in 2008) and a booming economy world wide from 2005 up to 2008, world oil production was flat. That really means middle east oil production was flat. The chart below (from EIA) shows "spare" OPEC oil production capacity was below 2.5 million barrels per day during the period. Was that the peak? If that was the peak, then things will muddle along for a few years before OPEC oil production starts to decline.

Every aspect of our economy and the habits of people in the US have been conditioned by 100+ years of cheap oil. The assumption that cheap oil will last forever is baked into government planning, every loan that's made by a bank, etc... Hopefully, we can make a transition to using substitute fuels--like natural gas--before some crisis hits.

Stitched Up

A couple of months ago, I was starting to get back into the groove of doing training rides that were aimed at preparing me for racing the CX season. That would then be the basis for training through the winter, and hopefully road racing again in 2013. But something was wrong. One day, I'd get out and do a really solid ride, the next I'd be slow. I didn't feel tired or anything, just no power.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I went out for a run and felt pain like I'd never experienced before. It felt a like a hot poker in the lower abdomen. It was enough to make me go to the doctor. Yada yada. Thursday I had hernia surgery. Apparently, it was pretty bad. Possibly something that had taken two or three years to develop. I never even noticed.

I am amazed at how well the surgery went. I was walking around with little difficulty an hour after being sliced open and stitched up. The next day, per the doctors orders, I walked about 3 hours. Tomorrow, I'll get out and ride if the weather cooperates.

I'll probably take it easy for at least a couple of weeks, then start trying to fulfill that need for speed.

Hello Cleveland!

It's been really interesting living in Nashville among the party people, and I've been here for a year. I'm moving back to Chardon this weekend. When I moved down here, I was thinking of it as a permanent thing (see my previous post), but probably should have thought of it as temporary.

I've got a good backlog of stories, hopefully I'll get a chance to write more soon, and I'm working on several new projects. One of them is bike technology related--a pulse oximeter you can wear while riding.

I started looking into that after climbing a hill here in Nashville--Riverside Road in East Nashville. It climbs up from the Cumberland River at a maximum 17% grade. It's a short climb, so you can sprint, but whenever I would, I'd be completely wiped out and hyperventilating by the top.

I went and bought a cheap pulse oximeter at a drug store and did the ride again. The pulse oximeter is a gizmo that clips onto your fingertip and estimates O2 saturation by measuring the absorption of red and infrared light. For a healthy person, the O2 saturation is essentially 100% all the time. When I did the climb again, anaerobic, but not at full gas, I measured the O2 saturation at the top of the hill and, sure enough, it was down to 93%. That got me thinking it would be a good complimentary piece of training data. Maybe it's possible to directly measure VO2 max, for example. So, I've been messing around building a prototype for the past few months. It's going to be tricky to engineer something that will work as reliably as a heart rate monitor.

Goodbye Cleveland!

I just accepted a job in Nashville, TN. It's happened fast, and I will be moving even faster. I think there will be a sonic boom as I exit town in the Element. I am planning to be living there by the end of April!

I'll be back to the CLE from time to time, and I think Nashville will be a good early spring training camp site for my Cleveland cycling homies. So even though I am saying goodbye, I am sure I will see all of you again soon and often.

It's been a really great experience to get to know lots of interesting and really good people through our sport.

Best of luck to everyone!

I will be blogging about my cycling experience in Nashville, so stay tuned.

Orwell Roubaix

This year, Jim's Roubaix ride departed from Orwell at the intersection of 322 and Route 45. This year, 25 people showed up to ride. When I pulled into the feed store parking lot, and saw all the bikes getting prepped and people standing around in lycra, I felt a little bit like I was getting ready to race.

The weather was good--really one of the few warm and sunny days we had this spring. There was a pretty steady breeze out of the South, and riding among the fields and scrubby trees of Southern Ashtabula County on the wrecked country roads, it really felt like we could be in Northern France on the cobbles.

The group went at a really good pace on most of the roads, but luckily stopped to regroup several times. I was not in shape to keep up! I haven't really made a single trip into the pain cave so far this season, but I went way down deep a few times during this ride, especially on the long gravel/paved hill that Jim found for the course.

By the last few miles, I was thrashed, and actually just dropped onto the little ring on the flat roads just to keep moving. I think I should have brought quite a bit more food.

This year, many riders opted for a CX bike setup with 'cross tires, or heavy duty road tires, so there were not as many punctures as last year. I rode my 'cross bike and mounted some heavy duty touring tires, and for the first time was able to ride full speed on the rocks without worrying about a puncture or destroying my wheels. I came up short on a bunny hop over a pot hole at full speed and caught the lip squarely with the rear wheel, but didn't even have a problem.

I think the ideal setup would be an old road bike with heavy duty touring tires. My CX bike is a frame size smaller than my road bike, and my position is a little more upright, which ended up being a pretty painful combo by about mile 30.

It was a great experience, and was a good way to get psyched up to watch the pros tackle the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, and to be even more amazed that it's possible for a human body to endure that. Thanks Jim!

flux capacity

I've had a long period of stability in my life--great for training and riding a lot. Now, I am in a transition period, professionally, personally, and maybe geographically--all of it really good--and cycling has dropped down the list of priorities. This spring, I've only got about 100 miles in my legs. I have been keeping my general fitness up by running, and heading to the Y during the evenings, but I haven't been able to get out on the bike as much as I would like.

So, this season, I might not do a whole lot of road racing, but I will be riding, time trialing, and getting out on the road as much as possible.

season kick off

For the past several seasons, Tackle the Tower is my first major test of fitness for the calendar year. I've been chipping a few seconds off at each attempt, and was hoping to do the same this year. My plan was to sprint the first several floors, then settle into suffer mode until the finish.

I discovered that TTT is probably not the greatest event for a fitness test unless you start in the first few positions.

I sprinted the first 6 stories, and immediately caught up to a knot of slower traffic. I slowed to walking pace for several floors before I got clear and settled into my own full tilt pace. So this year, I was a full minute slower than last year, and basically had to throw the result out as a barometer for my fitness.

Even without a good read on my fitness, I think I'm a little off the pace for being prepared for the season, though. I have several hours of cross country skiing under my belt, but not much time in the saddle. I'm guessing this past weekend was probably the last ski weekend of the season, and I'm getting the cyclocross bike ready for duty as my sloppy road riding machine with fenders and heavy tires.

cyclocosm

When I go cross country skiing at Chapin Forest, it's nice to take a break at the overlook, which is at the edge of a sandstone cliff with a view of the Lake plain. On a clear day, you can see downtown Cleveland, which is about 18 miles away.

Today, I saw it with a new perspective. I think "Cleveland" is a little like the idea of the Roman Empire in the dark ages. Rome was a looming presence in the mind of the people even though the Empire was dead for so long it wasn't even dust anymore. In Northeast Ohio, our favorite pastime is to discuss what's wrong with Cleveland and how to fix it--with a bus lane, for example. From now on, I'm going to refuse to talk about Cleveland's problems. Maybe I'm the Northeast Ohio equivalent one of those Italians in the 15th century who woke up to the fact that the idea of Rome, and the Zombie institutions of the Empire were holding Italy, and the rest of Europe back.

Northeast Ohio is a decent place to live. From a cyclist's point of view, it is really pretty great. I thought of a posting on Dave Steiner's blog back in 2009 from this new perspective. The series of races that the folks at Lake Effect started could be more important to the quality of life in Northeast Ohio than Browns stadium, for example. Something like the NEOCX series, or the Westlake training series, or Jim's TT series could be the difference between some young person deciding to move or stay in the area, and maybe that gets them to invite friends to move here because the cycling scene is pretty damn good, then one of them starts a business, yada yada yada. Cycling can be a basis for people here making connections with their fellow cyclists in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, too.

To stick with the historical analogy, that would make Northeast Ohio cyclists and their friends and family the equivalent of the humanists in the renaissance. Back then, a few people decided to change the world with new ideas, and just went and did it. Today, a few cyclists and their friends and family can just go ahead and transform Northeast Ohio by stringing tape at CX venues, sitting at registration tables, or turning lap cards at Westlake. That's pretty cool.

brace yourself

Could it really be that easy?

I had knee problems this whole ski season. Last week after only an hour at Chapin, for example, my knee was radiating pain through my entire leg. I had to wait a few minutes in the car before I could drive home. I decided to try a knee brace before making a doctor's appointment.

I ordered one online, but I also just picked up a neoprene brace from the drug store and tried it out yesterday. An hour went by. No pain. So I stayed out another hour. No problem at all.

I'm not sure what the deal is with my knee, so I'm not sure what problem the brace fixed. It either kept it warm, or supported it laterally.

Whatever it is, I'm happy. I enjoy two hours on the skis, but could never do two hours on the trainer.

the mental side of crashing

In the past couple of years, I've had my ass kicked a couple of times. I had a car accident in 2008, then my bike wreck this past spring. In both cases, I got a helicopter ride to MetroHealth.

I bounced back pretty quickly mentally and physically both times. The car wreck involved a few months for the bones to heal and a year and a half to rebuild my atrophied quads. The bike wreck only injured my hands, so the recovery time was relatively quick.

In both cases, my main focus was to get back to riding, and I didn't even think about the mental trauma that I suffered. For example, after the car wreck, I started driving again right away without a worry. And I thought the bike wreck was mainly just annoying. Once I got my hand out of a hard cast, I was back to normal life, aka racing and training.

In retrospect, I just avoided thinking about how those two incidents shook me up since I was so focused on getting past the physical injury part. But after a recent event--the details I'll omit--I'm pretty sure that the trauma I suffered altered my perspective in some inconvenient ways that came back to bite me. Yeah, it's vague, but I don't want to get too personal in my bike blog!

So, the lesson I'd take away from this is it's probably not such a bad idea to try to get a handle on the mental part of recovering from an accident once the physical recovery is done.

Happy New Year

New Year, time to start thinking about racing season.

The typical Northeast Ohio ski season is well underway. That is, it's over just when it got started. My skiing form was just returning when all the snow melted. I haven't started this year's training log, yet, but I probably managed to do about 10-15 hours of skiing in December.

I've spent a grand total of two hours on the trainer so far this season, and I got out on the road for a frozen hour on Sunday in the 27F weather. It felt pretty good to be out on dry roads and not indoors at the Y or on the trainer. That is, it felt good until the cold really soaked in.

My main goal this winter is to drop some weight. If I manage to chip off 10 pounds by the end of February, I'll treat myself to a new TT bike. Time trials will be a bigger part of my racing season this year.

I hope everyone has a safe, happy, and healthy 2011 and I will see y'all out there soon enough.

too much too soon

Snow. Time to cross country ski.

I started to pile on the hours over the past week, and this weekend I started pushing the pace at Chapin. I was climbing the hill from the Hobart Road side, and I was pretty happy with how fast I was going when my car crash knee started to feel sore. No big deal. It's basically sore whenever I do a hard workout.

I started to make the final push up to the crest of the hill. I started to stride forward with my right foot, and I felt my ski tip swing back like normal, but when it stopped and I started to set my foot down I felt a sharp pain like a rodent chewing its way out through my skin. Ouch!

I stopped for a minute and gave myself the typical exam. The knee still bends, I can step forward, etc... It seems alright, so I continue on. I don't have any more sharp pain, but it's just sore.

Luckily, it seems like a minor problem. I didn't have any swelling and it's only mildly sore today, so hopefully I'll be able to continue with my skiing this week, otherwise it will be time to log some more miles on the trainer.

Kirtland Park CX

Kirtland Park is one of my favorite 'cross venues. Every year, the park offers up some new wrinkle. The amphitheater is always the main feature, and this year the course climbed up the terraced steps, but pretty much every foot of the course was interesting and challenging, including the "stairway to heaven".

I lined up in my stay out of the way spot a few rows back in the field, and I was actually caught by surprise by the start, but I was feeling pretty good, and seemed to be able to power through the field section pretty well. For once, I was passing plenty of people.

The first downhill on the course had that roller-coaster feel. It's so steep that you can't see the bottom until your wheel goes over, then it's a rapid acceleration to the lake plain. I had a pretty good line through the turn at the base of the hill and ended up moving up a little more.

Since the field was big and the course was twisty and turny, the race was stacked up for most of the first lap, and the track stand skills came in handy. It didn't really open up until after the stair climb.

After it got sorted out, I spent the next two laps or so battling for position with a decent group of riders. However, I was keeping it right on the red line the whole time, and doubted it would last.

Eventually, the spring started to unwind. At about the midway point Seth passed me on the stairs just before the baseball field, and I spent some valuable oxygen cursing him as he scooted past. Then I settled into a rhythm I could hold to the finish. At some point, I started working with Daryl, and we shared the pace on the flatter sections of the course, where the wind actually was a factor.

With two laps to go, I was pretty toasted. I kept banging the pedals, but was pretty worn out. My main concern at that point was to stay out of the way of riders on the lead lap who were fighting to place or win. Bill caught up to me on the steep hairpin climb, and I moved way over to the right to let him go through at speed, so I ended up running the hill for the first time.

I totally botched my remount at the crest and basically vaulted my bike and tumbled down. No harm, though. It took several seconds to get moving again, and by then, I just wanted to finish.

It was a great wrap-up to a great series! I had to scoot home immediately after the race, so I missed all the end of season festivities, but still managed to say some "see ya next years!" to the fine group of people who race 'cross every year. It's really a special atmosphere. If you don't race next season, make one of the local races a destination for your fall road rides next year.

Thanks to the Lake Effect crew for doing all the hard work!

Blue Sky CX Weekend

I rode down to Chagrin Falls on Saturday since the weather was so nice and warm. I took it pretty easy on the way down, but pushed relatively hard heading up Bell Street toward Auburn Road, then had a tailwind all the way back home. I haven't done a training ride over 30 miles since September, but I still had a lot left in the tank at the end of the 40 miles.

Then on Sunday, I packed up the Redline and drove to the Blue Sky CX race at Coulter Avenue Park in Euclid. The course reminded me of our Brent Evans designed masterpiece in Solon. There were countless turns, and since the park is also some type of drainage basin, there was a ton of off camber sections. But the main feature was a big run-up a muddy hill.

I was in the mood to flog myself pretty hard, but since the course was both muddy and hilly, I started at the back and just stayed out of the way of other riders as much as possible.

It was a great workout, and there were a few laps when I was racing with other riders, which always makes it more fun. My main problem was I couldn't get any traction on the run-up, so I lost a lot of time every lap. On the positive side, I was doing really well on the off camber technical riding and only lost my momentum a couple of times due to a slip in the mud, but I did not crash. Amazing. Another amazing thing is that my 39x27 gearing was fine in even the muddiest sections.

The course was tough. So tough that I was totally happy to get lapped by the leaders of the race and put out of my misery. That's the only race in the series where I actually had to flop down on the ground for a few minutes to recover.

Blue Sky did an awesome job putting the course together, and running the event! Thanks a lot guys!

The season finale at Kirtland Park is up next. I'm hoping for drier conditions and more power sections so I can battle it out with some of my usual cyclocross "rivals" although I use that term very loosely.

being a better man

Almost every training ride I do is a pleasure. Even if it's cold and rainy, or really windy, it's great to be outside and covering dozens of miles of northeast Ohio under my own power. The only sure spoiler is an asshole driver or two.

Today should have been a perfect ride. I went up through Kirtland, through the Arboretum, and up Kirtland Chardon Road hill toward Chardon. I didn't ride hard. I just enjoyed myself. But as I got closer to Chardon, some redneck screamed some crap out his window.

That really doesn't happen to me too often. The vast majority of drivers are considerate and polite these days. So it was no big deal. I don't even know what the dude said. But I was probably a little annoyed. I cranked up the tempo on the stretch of Rt 6 that heads into Chardon. It's a flat section of road, and usually there's a tailwind, so it's possible to get up to 30 mph for a half mile or so without working too hard.

The problem with that, of course, is some drivers have no clue what to do around a bike moving that fast, and they completely screw up passing. That's ok if there's not much traffic, and the guy going by isn't a semi. Some trucker practically forced me off the road. So I was a little more annoyed, but thankfully almost home.

The weirdest encounter I've had in a long time came next. I got back up to speed, and zipped down the hill into Chardon with the traffic. A very elderly man who probably got his learner's permit in a chariot passed me, then slowed down and kept blocking my path. I doubt he was intentionally doing it. Instead, he was just driving super slow and staring into the rear view mirror like some fucking nut. I just got off that road as soon as possible.

I wish I had some Zen like power to ignore this shit, but man, it's enough to make me want to hang up the bike for winter!

maintenance mode

I went down to Brett's Chagrin CX race on Saturday. He's managed to create a really nice tradition. The course is one of my favorites, and the atmosphere is fantastic. This year, I finally wore a costume--my old tuxedo--which I hoped would be completely destroyed by the end of the race, but in spite of the massive mud puddle in the course on the entry into the woods, scraping through tree branches, and bouncing off an occasional tree, it looked about the same after the race as it did before the start. I felt great, but I ended up racing pretty slow to avoid passing out from overheating.

I've switched over into my maintenance riding mode for now through Christmas. So I'm riding a little, running a little, and lifting more. I haven't really made any adjustment to my diet, so I was pretty surprised to drop some weight with a lot less energy burned. Weird. For example, in August, I burned around 22,000 kJoules, and lost no weight, but in October I burned only around 8,000 kJoules but I lost 5 pounds. That seems to defy all logic, so it's interesting. We'll see if the trend continues, and then maybe I'll be able to draw some conclusion about it.

wtf?

Cellphone, Kindle, Book. What could go wrong?

Sisyphus at Elyria

The Sisyphus myth popped into my head as soon as I was done with the "B" race at Cascade Park in Elyria this past Sunday.

The main feature of the course was a grassy sled hill ascent/descent. For the "B" field it was probably 50-75 feet of climbing to a 180 degree turn, then straight down the hill. I wasn't able to get enough traction to climb the hill on the bike, but several people were able to.

Sisyphus is the dude that spent eternity rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down. After the race, I thought the weird formalism of cyclocross should give pause to anybody who interprets stories about things they did not personally witness. A hundred or so people spent their Sunday afternoon in agony, pushing a bike up a hill only to have it roll back down, so thousands of years ago, it's possible someone pushed a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down as a sporting event.

Anyway, though the course was great and the venue was perfect, my race sucked. Since the sticky mud season arrived, I swapped my road 53/39 cranks for a compact crank-set a couple of days before the race. On the repair stand, the bike shifted without any problems, but on Sunday, I had trouble shifting onto the big ring, and lacked tools to do a proper tune up before the race. Oh well, we're out of the hard packed dirt season and into the sticky mud season anyway. It seems like the efficiency of converting muscle power to forward motion in those conditions is brutally proportional to weight. So now, cyclocross is just another winter workout for me.

It seemed that the compact gearing did nothing to make the race easier for me, so I'll probably just swap back to the road cranks. The 39T ring seems to be ideal for me on the flatter sections of courses even in the mud. Then I can ride the CX bike in the winter on the road without spinning out all the time.

That was probably my hardest workout of the season. I haven't felt as bad as I did on the second to last lap since the Todd Field Race last season. I nearly pulled the plug on the race as I rode past the car, but it seems like it's always possible to do one more lap, so at least I finished.

Thanks to all the great folks at Snakebite for putting on the race! It was a beautiful venue and the course was really well conceived and fun to ride.