Tossing and Tortured 'Till Dawn

2009-12-15T10:36:00.001-08:00

I'm trying to decide whether I have anything worthwhile to write besides Cycling Product XYZ reviews, and, Commuting is Kind of Crazy Sometimes.

Right now, though, I haven't go it, so, here's what I found as I rolled through frosty Tacoma last week. I know this ain't much for hardened New Englanders, but, dang! We ain't used to this.

2009-11-20T12:12:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it really is that simple:

Take this call. "Bike Company, may I help?"

Caller: "Yes, hello, I bought one of your accessories, it has a mounting bracket that I'm having a hard time attaching."

Yours Truly: "Okay, what seems to be the problem?"

Caller: "Well, there is a special kind of screw in there, I can't figure out how to get it out... no screwdriver I have works."

Yours Truly: "Sir, that is an Allen bolt."

Caller: "Oh, so I need an Allen wrench for it?"

Yours Truly: "Correct, yes."

Caller: "Okay, great, you've been very helpful."

If I were feeling a little hipper, this would be high time for a facepalm.

2009-11-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

...aaand we've got it.

Success, etc!

More later.

2009-11-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

Snapped off frozen bolt extraction attempts o-rama!

Yeah, this is irritating.

2009-11-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

Preamble: Costco is a company that I overall have a great deal of respect for. Their cost-cutting, volume-based business model is simple to understand, saves me and other customers money, and their equitable treatment of employees makes the shopping experience physically and ethically more pleasant.

So, please take this criticism in the spirit it is offered.

I just got a book of coupons for Costco. Actually, I got two of them, since my landlord has not changed her address with the company.

Coupons.

For Costco.

What gives? What sense does this make? These are not manufacturer's coupons being passed down to club members, they are internal, store coupons.

If you're not with me yet, let me explain: Costco is a warehouse club. This means you have to pay a modest annual fee to shop there, and then you're on the list. Once a member, you get the same low pricing (most of Coscto's products sell at about 10-12% gross profit margins) as all other members. SKU count, the total number of items, is low on the floor, as are costs.

I won't get into excessive detail about these cost cutting measures, but, the point is that on any given item, Costco makes a little money, but not very much. It is a great place to buy name brand items for reliably cheap.

This differs from premium grocery stores, like Safeway, in my area, which have single-unit items at considerably higher retail prices, but many items are frequently on sale. In a given product category, I'd wager there's at least SOMETHING on sale, every week, at Safeway. Furthermore, they sometimes offer "loss leader" sales, a doorbuster product sold for an unsustainably low price, designed to entice shoppers into the store. The idea is that you'll buy enough full-margin items to make up for it.

In your market, you probably get the traditional Tuesday grocery flier, with specials from all of the local shops, all vying for your business with specials like this. They send this flyer to literally every house in your neighborhood, attempting to lure your business.

Coscto doesn't spend the money on either the mass media advertising or the loss-leaders, as it would be antithetical to its EDLP (Every Day Low Price) business model.

The coupons they are sending me arrive at my place because I AM ALREADY A MEMBER. Their coupon distribution is one coupon book, one member.

Do you see what I am getting at?

If everyone eligible to shop at the store, and only those people, are offered the same price, what is the point of the coupon?

It's just an advertisement.

I used one, anyway, last week. Sure, I can complain, but I'm a cheap date. The cashiers scan the coupons, but they do not require their surrender.

This further demonstrates my point.

So, knock it off. Just lower the price to whatever it is that the coupon indicates, and, if you must, send members a flyer indicating what the price is.

Agreed?

2009-11-04T15:49:00.001-08:00

REV: Sigma Karma Pro Headlight

I’ve been riding the Karma for far too long not to have written it up. Apologies, Sigma.

The short version: Nice work indeed. This style of light is the way of the future for commuting, and I enthusiastically endorse it.

Longer Review: Sigma has been known in the US market for their durable bike computers with manuals containing quirky German-to-English translation. They’ve also had a wide range of lights, but it seems like recently a new designer stepped up to the plate. The Karma was my first experience.

Images of the light alone don’t do its size, or lack thereof, justice. Both the emitter and battery are TINY. Together, they weigh only (have to dig out my gram scale.)

The lithium-ion battery pack combined with the efficiency of a regulated LED is great. The light lasts about 4 hours on high, as claimed and tested by yours truly. At the end of my four-hour, round trip, commute, burning on high, the Karma JUST began to run out of batteries. On “economy” mode, Sigma claims sixteen hours, but I was not about to test that! The new model features a flashing mode as well, but my demo was not so equipped.

An excellent balance between weight, brightness, and battery life, the Karma is designed as a commuter light.

Just how bright is 75 Lux? Rating lighting systems against one another is challenging. Sigma use “LUX” to rate their lights, Light and Motion counts Lumens, and Cateye shows rankings in Candlepower. Without getting into physics, I will say that the Karma is quite bright, but not “portable sun” bright.

The beam is quite narrow; it will illuminate your lane, but will not light up the lane beside you. The Karma feels designed as a helmet-mounted light, which works for me, as it allows you to announce your presence to automobile cross-traffic.

For backroads in complete darkness, I found myself wanting a little more light. Sigma offers a high-quality, waterproof splitter cable that lets you run a pair of lights off a single battery. Now, I'm guessing it was intended for handlebars, but, I ended up with frog eyes!

With both lights on high, flying down Peasley Canyon way at thirty-five miles an hour, I’m not outrunning my lights, and reflective surfaces on both sides of the road flare up at me. The single battery still lasts more than my whole commute, and if I needed to recharge at the office, the included rapid-smart-charger brings a dead battery to full charge in about two hours.

This is a far cry from the overnight-recharges and ninety-minute run time of NiCd Halogen lights of the past!

Fit and finish are great, and includes lots of little tricks: it includes both a helmet mount and a fairly tricky handlebar mount that ratchets on with a single pinch. The emitter shell is a machined aluminum cylinder, and the power button is fully sealed – it’s about as watertight as a sport wristwatch. That’s essential for commuting in the Pacific Northwest.

Also included is a multi-directional quick release battery mount that affixes to your handlebar, stem, top tube, or helmet. The battery is light enough that it’s not uncomfortable on the back of my helmet, or you can use the included extension cable and drop the battery in a jersey pocket.

Sigma is also standardizing their batteries across their range, and the L-ION packs
can be used with a number of other lights. It’s nice not have to play the “which battery goes with which light?” game, or carry multiple chargers with you to races or events.

Disadvantages? The on-off switch is a little quirky. To activate the light, you double-click the switch. Single clicks cycle through the high-low-economy-flashing modes, but will not return the light to “off”; this requires a press and hold for two seconds. I’d rather have the option of a squeeze bulb on the extension cord to activate the light. With two on my helmet, I find myself fumbling with soaked gloves or cold fingers to adjust both lights.

Of course, most rides will be shorter than the total battery life for most riders, so you’d just pick your desired brightness at the start and turn it off at the end.
I like the quick-release handlebar mount, but today’s bikes are coming with an increasingly strange array of handlebar sizes, so I’d like to see a “mountless” O-ring option for the light on bars – this works quite well with lightweight emitters like the Karma, and Sigma use a similar setup for their tail lights.

Summary : With light weight, long battery life, and water tightness, the Karma is an excellent choice for commuters who want to step up from Alkaline-powered lights. Alone or in tandem, it could make a good night-riding light, but more firepower might be necessary for 24-hour mountain bike racing.

Addendum No, I'm not going to take the light out in the dark and attempt to take a picture to show how much illumination it produces. That shows more about the camera than it does about the light...

2009-11-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

While I come up with a few more important posts, theoretically, allow me to share my coworker A's perspective about snakes.

Staff of Aesclepius aside, people have these weird hangups about them. C'mon, guys, they're just lizards, but, with no legs.

Here's what she had to say about, quote, big death snakes.

"I would probably try to run away from one of those, but then it would get its fangs into me and pull me into its spiral death grip until I had no more breath in me."

2009-11-04T08:26:00.001-08:00

Yes, I know it has.

Wow.

2009-10-05T10:04:00.001-07:00

Let me return from my travels with this important question:

You approach a door with this sort of handle.

To enter the door, do you pull the handle up, towards the ceiling, or push it down, towards the floor?

Consistently?

Which hand do you open doors with?

That's it. No trick question.

2009-09-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

I should probably get over my puns. Okay, I can't resist. My ride in the morning was kinda screwy:

Actually, I think that is a lag bolt. Anchor bolt? Something. But something that cut the casing of my tire down in a hurry.

Thankfully, I always carry a pretty sizable boot, made from a section of old tire, and it did the trick to get me to work.

Just to prove these Tacoma streets ain't messin' around, it also finished off my front fender, and I noticed a bolt for the rear one had rattled out. I am certainly looking forward to getting full metal fenders on the 2010 Clubman.

2009-09-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

This Just in: Roman Emperors Smoked Popular American Cigarettes

Okay, Yours Truly has never been down with the cancer, or else I likely would've noticed this before, but, what the heck?

At a grocery store, I saw a couple of posters for cigarettes. Avoiding all the politics involved with this discussion, I noticed a little crest on the oversized package of Marlboros on the poster. Around some little heraldic insignia, it read, "Vini, Vidi, Vici." As in, Julius Caesar -- or at least attributed to him.

Today, Rome, tomorrow, the world!

Next to it was a poster for Pall Malls. Curious, then, I looked at it and found they had gone a little bit ahead in Roman history. Here we had, "In Hoc Signo Vinces," which, of course, is Constantine. Okay, fine, a common Latin rendering of a Greek phrase that theoretically began Rome's conversion to christianity, but, whatever. You get the idea.

What the heck has this got to do with cigarettes?

Alea Iacta Est!

2009-09-08T12:04:00.001-07:00

My random combing of the internet has found this blog: http://waiterrant.net/ . I don't know much more about it -- it was a random rant about decaf coffee that lead me here -- but it's really good writing so far.

He is far more eloquent, to say nothing of a lot wordier, than Yours Truly of late. So, while you are reading that, you can look at a few more pictures here:

Check out Sapphire Pond. It kind of reminds me of Little Crater Lake in Oregon: improbable depths in a small space, beautiful clear blue water. The difference, of course, is that while Little Crater is icy cold -- so cold that bacteria canot live -- Sapphire is super blue because it it's some kind of superheated geothermal suchandsuch. It's REALLY hot. I'm talking, 150 degrees.

Here is probably the ubiquitous Yellowstone picture: Bison in the road.

There are lots of Bison at Yellowstone. They are often in the Road.

It's a national park, so hour-long bison jams are are just kind of par for the course.

Here's M checking out the Grand Tetons. They really do look like a postcard.

2009-09-03T08:10:00.001-07:00

For my next trick, I will perform "quantitative easing" of my bank balance.

2009-09-02T15:19:00.001-07:00

2009-08-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

Back from my mini-roadtrip: Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and everything around 'em. Five states, Seven days, Three Thousand Miles.

Details to follow.

Catchup time!

2009-08-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

"Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar's destiny lies with Congress." -- Warren Buffett in the New York Times, Wed 19 Aug 09

2009-08-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

Product Test -- On The Go Hazlenut Cappuccino Coffee House Beverage by Kraft Foods.

I couldn't resist this gem.

Could you?

I like coffee. I am going camping next week. A helpful coworker provided me a sample of this fantastic product. What's not to like?

Pour hot water in, and it foams and froths like a latte! Caffeine, plus some lovely artificial hazelnut flavor, and a lotta artificial sweetner.

Really, I think there's got to be something wrong with me that I gave this masochistic creation a try. I gather it's mostly like the diet version of the stuff they serve at the 7-11's "cappuccino machine," with some kind of chemical aeration to boot.

All I know is it tasted like the dried, charred remnants of a Diet Coke can that had been in the sun too long, mixed with baking soda, and poured in hot vinegar.

Oh, but with hazelnut added.

In other news, I just read this article in my local newspaper's online edition, for some reason -- I have to kill time somehow when I'm on hold at work. It's talking about back to school suggestions for youngsters, and it has this to say:

"While a kindergarten child might not know the alphabet, it’s important to foster letter recognition and number sense. When you drive past a store, point to the first letter and say its name out loud..."

Waitasecond.

Kindergarteners not knowing their ABC's?

Okay, MAYBE everyone can't already read by K-G, but, wow.

In other news, this post is quickly losing steam. I'm going to depart from it and go back to a letter about the sea change that's come to the credit card industry.

2009-08-14T12:18:00.001-07:00

Urgent:

Okay, not really.

But WHAT do you call this character: |

You know, just above ENTER, on US keyboards, anyway. SHIFT + BACKSLASH.

What is the name of that symbol? I use it in my day to day life, actually -- it performs a function in a work program, but I never know how to refer to it.

I once heard it called a "Pipe." I think. No, not that kind of pipe.

EDIT : I'm hearing that "Pipe" is acceptable, as is "Bar" or "vertical bar."

Thoughts?

2009-08-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

Hello again, Old Friend: the rain returned for a couple of days to the Sound.

Drinking coffee at night once more, watching the drops scatter across the patio, not wondering from whence the sands of Arrakis had descended upon us, and what have you.

As generic about talking about the weather is, it was nice; especially since it brought about days like today. It will reach the high sixties, with some clouds, and maybe a few sprinkles. This is my absolute favorite type of weather.

Also generic is talking about food, but here is a dinner last night, which was awesome, even if there are some breaks from tradition here. This is pozole verde con mole, in a vegetarian version, arroz rojo, and, so what if the corn bread isn't a tostada? It's pretty good. Of course, it doesn't hold up enough to use it like a spoon, but, I prefer less liquid in the pozole anyway -- as you can see below.

We haven't cooked this as many times as I'm letting on, so I'm stil learning, here. Next time we may make it a couple of days' effort and make the hominy ourselves, "they" say it tastes better that way.

Also, I'm going to reveal my award of the day for a couple of modern technologies that I actually DO like, since yours truly seems to have gotten a needlessly retro-grouchy reputation.

Sure, I hate suburbia and the disposable world and stuff, but sometimes they get it right. I'll have to go and take my own pic, I guess, because Googling "Ziploc Twist Loc," even with all of their whacky copyrighted spelling, doesn't come up with a picture of how cool these little suckers are.

Trust me, they're one of the great inventions of my day. They're little plastic tubs into which you put, um, whatever you want, and close a screw-top lid. It's just like a jar, right, what's the big deal?

Look, my ride to work is two hours long. If I want to carry something here, what do I use? Plastic wrap or a baggie won't do even for fairly solid things, let alone rice, pasta, or anything squishy.

These little containers are a daily lifesaver for me; without them I'd have to resort to empty cottage cheese tubs, and I HATE cottage cheese. No, little bits of pineapple do NOT help.

SECOND, I want to give honorable mention to threaded tops on milk and juice cartons. This single invention lets things stay fresh in the refrigerator nearly twice as long after opening, and means you don't get little dribbles of orange juice all over the place when you're a slob and drink from the carton like I do.

This works even better than the flip-top that is on oh-so-euro quart-sized asceptic boxes.

No, I'm not going to cut it out. No, I don't pound back the cow stuff this way -- the idea of drinking a glass of milk is a pretty revolting concept here. Yes, even with cookies. YES, even if they are chocolate chip. Cold breakfast cereal is about the only place outside of cooking that stuff is good for.

2009-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

And you know I only embed when it's worthwhile, not some kind of lazy excuse for a post.

Thanks, Bikeportland.

2009-08-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

Way to Diet:

I generally believe that most "diet" concepts are pretty silly. Overall, I've thought that a Blackberry Pie diet would work just as well as a Superfad Diet #942, or, I Only Eat Foods With Seven Letters in Their Name.

But, last night I was proven wrong.

We made some hummus -- roasted red pepper and garlic -- and some fresh pita. This went along with a salad of spinach, lettuce, and kale. It was supposed to be a fairly simple dinner.

So.

Full.

You don't even understand. I know hummus is high calorie-density, but have you ever tried eating a thousand calories of hummus and pita?

I think I am still full.

I could barely make myself hungry enough for aforementioned blackberry pie. I managed it.

Yeah, it's a hard life.

2009-08-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Noxious and Condemned -- Saturday 1 August

I grew up in a cul-de-sac in unincorporated suburbia, at nearly the bottom of a little hill. All three houses at the bottom of this street had roughly half-acre lots, but the backyards were down a full storey from ground level, with rocky slopes formed from an old riverbed. All were overrun with a jungle of growth: fir trees, hawthorne, and birch but also English Ivy and, of course, Himalayan Blackberries.

Sure, it's a Noxious Weed, but blackberries have always been one of my favorite fruits, and apparently they're a pretty good thing to eat.

Late summertime was always one of my favorite seasons, and a tradition of August is blackberry picking. The ones in the stores are awfully expensive and usually quite underripe, since ripe berries don't travel well, but if you can find a source set back from the exhaust and dirt of the road, they're free for the taking around here.

This is the spot I found, on my commute into work. This is a scrap of land owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation, and several houses in this area have all been condemned and boarded up -- I think with the plan was to be able to build a highway interchange here, which may or may not happen in the next twenty-five years or the like.

But, for now, the houses stand, boarded up, empty. In their place, I guess, a few miles down the road -- in the flood plain of the Puyallup River, is a bunch of shiny new, identical subdevelopments. I guess people could move there.

But these were perfectly good houses, built to live in, not make a buck. It's really eerie to be here. I feel like I'm in The Road.

I pull off of the road onto the long gravel drive, and roll up alongside the house. It's just like I'm coming home, as I look briefly at the yard, the pear tree and the Noble Fir, the remains of the tree fort. Anyone know what kind of tree that is? Yours Truly is no arborist.

But, of course, no one lives here. The blackberries and morning glory have taken over the yard, spilling over the fence, the garden trellis, the walls of the shed.

Picking berries at the garden, looking at the still green pears, out across the field to the still-active farm a bit down the road, it’s easy to imagine going into the mudroom, washing off the fruit, making a pie – but no one will live here again except the wasps that have burrowed their way into the walls.

Of course, some squatter had already pried off the plywood covering the rear door, made a little pallet out of a scrap of carpet and a space blanket. There’s a 3-year old receipt and an empty CD case in an overturned bureau drawer.

This house is otherwise pretty nice. It has hardwood floors, a two-tier starcase to a little top floor furnished attic, with an old-style slope-sided ceiling that'd never fly in today's clone-a-home.

Wow, that's a lot of hyphens.

The thing of it is, I would've love to live in a house like this. It's attractive, solidly built, ergonomically sound. People would call it "cute," with a lot of "charm," though the nearby freeway would give it "character." One would certainly always hear the noise from it, but so what?

This whole ex-neighborhood is full of empty lots, boarded up houses, and a big, blank field which has a sign suggesting that commercial lot space is available. It's been there, unchanged and unbuilt, for the three years I've lived in the area.

But this is progress, right?

You've got to build bypasses.

It's not the end of the world. Just don't go back for your bag.

The important part about houses isn't that they are livable, "charming," or aesthetically pleasing. The important part is their square footage, the two-car garage, the central air.

Right?

2009-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

RALEIGH RECORD ACE -- A quick peek.

Look who's coming to dinner: The new 2010 Raleigh Record Ace. The skinny: Race geometry. Lugged steel. Shimano 6700. Brooks Swallow. Under $2,000.

Yours Truly has not gotten a chance to ride this yet, but he will, just as soon as this weather settles down -- after all, here's what the National Weather Service has to say about today:

---

"RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURES WILL BE WIDESPREAD... AND SEATAC AIRPORT WILL LIKELY TIE OR BREAK ITS ALL TIME RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 100 DEGREES...AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING MEANS THAT A PROLONGED PERIOD OF DANGEROUSLY HOT TEMPERATURES WILL OCCUR.

A DANGEROUS SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE LIKELY. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS... STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM... STAY OUT OF THE SUN..." (emphasis mine)

---

Seriously?

I mean, sure, it is hot, but give me a break. It's hot everywhere, and just because it's twenty degrees over our average high temperature around here doesn't mean we are suddenly going to melt and die. Humidity at peak temperature is going to be in the 30% range.

Yes, I will have TWO water bottles on me for my bike ride home, and, sure, one will be all ice to start with. But this isn't going to stop me from four hours of bike commuting per day. If you don't lock your dog in the car, you'll be fine.

For everyone who is using the warmth to stay off of their bike: if you also use rain as an excuse for the same, you are not going to be riding very often in the Pacific Northwest.

I will say that the air quality is pretty crappy. Normally, the wind and rain keep us with beautifully clear air, even if the skies are grey. I could take a dose of THAT, right now.

I'm just glad that I don't sunburn after that initial toasting! I suppose I AM going to get skin cancer and die, but, that's life. Better than dying of obesity-related blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and wow this is getting more depressing than I intended.

It's going to be a great ride home, is my point.

2009-07-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

Pet Peeve of the day -- Cash for Clunkers Program!

Has anyone read about this thing?

On the surface, it SOUNDS like a good idea -- get people out of their gas-guzzling, low-emissions cars, and into showrooms to buy a shiny new car, with its lower emissions and lower pollution, right? And this isn't chump change we're talking about, it's either $3,500 or $4,500. It'll be like Wheel of Fortune; come on, big money!

But, read the fine print -- your vehicle has to be newer than 25 years old, you've got to have owned and insured it for at least a year, and, here's the big one, the EPA has got to say that your old vehicle has to get NO BETTER THAN 18 MPG COMBINED.

Seriously, that is a pathetic standard. Since the embargo of '74 days, passenger cars were required to get their act together, shrunk dramatically, and began to resemble the moddern auto. After a lot of whining and lobbying, the government continued to subsidize "utility vehicles," including both pickup trucks and the then-nascent SUV market. Because of this, costs remained low, and SUVs were allowed to have powerful, smog-churning engines to their hearts' content (though SOME regulation was added in later.)

This, more than consumer demand, fueled the boom in the tanks that dominate the modern road. What was once a working stiff's rig -- have you ever seen an old truck, with bare metal interiors and a single bench seat? -- became the leather-interior, quad-cab, twenty-inch-chrome wheeled beasts that continue choke the roads. Wow, this got a little more vehement than I expected.

Um, anyhow, if you feel like it, take a look here and see what passenger car mileage was like for the past 25 years. If you want to hunt down one with that bad of mileage, you can, but you'd have to delve deep into the archives to find this.

That's about it for the few remaining land-yachts which qualify for the program. Because of this, and the requirements that you have to improve your gas mileage by FOUR MPG, this is not the "Cash for Clunkers" program at all. Instead, they should call it the "upgrade your truck" program. We'll be swapping out a whole bunch of battered (but drivable, says the program) 80's and 90's pickups for shiny, ridiculous modern trucks so that everyone can feel secure in suburbia and be glad that they have four wheel drive, high clearance rigs, because "they like to go to the mountains sometimes."

Of course, I have a bit of a personal stake in the matter, I admit. While Yours Truly lives only on a bicycle, and might have a bit of opposition to continued subsidy of single-occupancy vehicles to boot, his -- erm, that is, my -- significant other has what would seem like a perfect candidate for the CARS program. It's a 1990 Chevy Corsica. It's got a V6 engine and an automatic without overdrive. It leaks oil. It's got no paint on it. It's everyone's definition of a "beater."

And, yet, it's a no-go. This terrible beast is far too efficient for CARS'. Why, it gets a whole twenty miles per gallon. Twenty!

Nevermind that she'd be trading it for a Honda Fit or something else with over a 50% improvement in mileage, not to mention the dramatically lower NOX, et cetera, it would emit.

You see, the CARS program is binary; you either meet all of its criteria and get the bonus, or you get nothing; there's no way to get a slightly reduced benefit from trading in a fairly okay mileage vehicle into a great one, as opposed to a crappy milesage vehicle into an okay one, even if the net benefit is identical.

But, I guess, those American car manufacturers that the government just bought out of bankruptcy, what was it that they were hurting the most with? Oh, that's right! All of their unsold truck inventory.

Funny, that.

2009-07-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

T-Town Throwdown

Last weekend, I checked this out before going to my LBS for a fast-paced groupride.

Trials are pretty far from the skinny-tires-and-lycra that Yours Truly is accustomed to; farther, even, than BMX, which still includes a couple elements of racing.

Basically, this is riding an obstacle course on a bike, slowly. Your goal is to get through each "section" in a period of time, without putting a foot down or otherwise losing your balance. It doesn't seem to score any better to go faster than the guy before you, just need to make make less mistakes.

Zoom in on this picture to note that the rider is cycling along the narrow edge of a two by four. The most impressive part of it to me was the amount that the riders could use their legs and the spring of their low-pressure tires to leap their bikes, from a standing start, up onto obstacles.

Here's what they're riding: 26" bikes that look something between a short-wheelbase mountain bike and a BMX ride, but with no saddle or seatpost whatsoever, and tiny gearing. They also had some kind of hub that I'll need to google -- riders could coast / freewheel, but they also appeared to be able to apply backpressure on the drivetrain with their pedals, and when they walked their bikes forward, the pedals turned like a fixie. I've heard of "freecoaster" hubs, I wonder if that is this?

I don't think I'll ever take part in a Trials event myself, but it was pretty entertaining to watch -- more spectator-friendly, I'd wager, than the spread-out road races that Yours Truly prefers.