A BLOG ABOUT MY LIFE: When my family wanted a fifth pet rabbit, they named him Bquark to appease me. I am a particle physicist who has studied b or bottom quarks, and I have used the screenname bquark in a variety of instances. "Bquark is a Bunny" captures my life, family and work.
An article on PhysicsWeb carries the headline "German lab wins linear collider contest". If you actually read the article you see that only the technology developed at DESY for its proposed collider, TELSA, was selected. The actual site is far from decided.
There is lots more material on this at the Fermilab Today web page and at Interactions.org a website run by the world's particle physics labs.
I know that blog entries are supposed to be short, but this one did not seem to warrant mentioning until I perceived how far I had come with my cycling this summer. I have been cycling on and off since graduate school. I am not yet serious enough to wear bicycle shorts, but I certainly bike more and harder than anyone in my family. Erin should be able to keep up with me, but she simply does not seem to enjoy riding. When we go out I cannot get her to go fast even when we go downhill. I think it is less that she cannot do it and more that she does not want to.
After the start of daylight savings time, I started to go out for a ride most evenings. I was riding about five to six miles in the evening, frequently accompanied by the kids. We rode around neighborhood and avoided crossing any large streets. The neighborhood is like many modern neighborhoods. One or two roads lead into the neighborhood from the large thoroughfares. It is full of short streets and cul-de-sacs. It is pretty hard to go for a long ride unless you go around in circles. Eventually I found a route that was about eight miles long and did not cross any heavily trafficked streets.
On Memorial Day I went for a ride after our block party. The weather was a little bit threatening, but I kept riding. When I was about three miles away, a downpour started. I went straight home instead our my usual circuitous route, but I was drenched within 5 minutes of riding through that rain. I had a huge dirt streak up my back, where dirty water splashed up from my rear wheel.
In June I started a biking log on a spreadsheet which I later transfered to the web. It shows the progress that I made over the course of the summer. At the start of the summer I was doing maybe 25 miles a week. I now do 40 to 60 a week, and the week when I was able to ride everyday I almost made 90 miles. My longest individual rides have gone from 13 miles to more than 22 miles.
In July, there was the Tour de France. I started following the Tour when I spent a summer in Geneva, Switzerland in 1984. It was two years before Greg Lemond won his first Tour, but he came in third that year. By the time Lemond had won his three Tours I was hooked. I looked forward to it every July, even when no American was in contention. Next year I am ordering the second tier of digital cable just so I can get Outdoor Life Network and real coverage.
I had a bad run of luck during the middle of July. I broke a spoke on my bike. My bike is 7 years old now so I guess I have to expect some repairs are going to be needed. The day I picked up the bike after it was fixed, I strained my back. Those two incidents kept me off my bike for about 10 days.
After watching Tour coverage on July 25, I was eager to go for a ride, but the weather looked threatening. I still remembered how miserable my Memorial Day ride was but in a interview Lance Armstrong spoke about how the Tour is won on cold rainy days six months before the Tour starts when he goes out rides all day. I went for it and got in a 15 mile ride that day. It drizzled most of the way, but I did not get caught in a downpour. It a good thing too since I was up to 7 miles away from home at times.
I had to break out of my little neighborhood, so I could ride farther. If I turn right as I leave my leave my street, I go on a four lane road where people routinely exceed the 25 mph speed limit, so I had not been eager to try that. Eventually, I decided that I had to try it. Luckily the road does not have heavy traffic and people can go around me without much trouble. The road goes downhill at first and even I can hit 30 mph, so I get to speed also. The road then goes back up to about the same elevation and I get to climb it, but that is not the real problem. At the top of the hill I have to turn right or left. Going right is a two lane road with no shoulder. To the left is a two lane road with an overpass over one highway then an underpass under I-70, but the shoulder is about 4 feet wide so I go left. Once I got past the underpass, I found some wonderful roads with wide 8 foot shoulders and I was able to take 10, 12 or 15 mile rides.
I had my best week of riding after the ride in the drizzle and the discovery of the new way to get out of the neighborhood. I was inspired. I even tried a little time trial for myself. It was a short ride and I went as fast as I could. I averaged 15 mph, which is surprising close to how fast I go on most of my rides, 12-14 mph. As my children so sweetly remind, "You're not going to make the the Tour de France, Dad". I ended up going 88 miles that week. I was lucky that I was able to ride everyday.
The Tour de France prompted a nice article in the New York Times about the proper fit of a bike. It explained how a seat should be high and hard, and that only a third of your weight goes on the seat. One third is supported by the pedals and one third by your handlebars. I got out my wrenches and started raising my seat. I have always tried to keep it high, but I was not yet at the limit of my seat post or my legs. The article had a nice explanation of how you will rock back and forth if the seat is too high. I also had to raise my handlebars. Those are now at their limit.
On my first ride of the next week I broke another spoke. When I broke the first one the bike mechanic told me that once you break one you can expect to break another soon. I guess I have found a mechanic that I can trust. I went for a new wheel this time, but I was sorely tempted to buy a new bike. My bike is something of mountain bike/road bike hybrid. It has wide tires, but they not very knobby. It does not have suspension like a mountain bike. I bought it, because I had badly wrecked the rim on my old road bike when I hit a pothole. The bike salesman said that I was two heavy for 1 inch tires. I weighed about 250 pounds then. My current bike has worked well for me, but it feels like a bit of truck when I want to go fast. Since I now weigh only 204 pounds, it seems like a faster bike might be possible. An emergency root canal made my decision for me. Just a new wheel please.
I could not live without riding for week while my bike was in the shop getting a new wheel. Margaret had bought a new bike in June. It was an inexpensive 6 speed city cruiser. It is a cheaper bike than mine, and it rides like it. It is also smaller than mine, but I did not have any choice. Margaret had bought a man's bike, since women's bikes do not fit her. I raised the seat as high as it would go, and off I went. My rides were shorter that week, and I really appreciated my own bike when I got it back. However, one good thing did come out of the experience. Ever since I started riding regularly again in 1997, I have been reluctant to pedal while standing. I have trick knee that occasionally goes out on me, and I was worried that it might happen on the bike. I had limited myself to standing for one crank of the pedals and then I sat down again. On Margaret's bike I found that most climbing was too difficult. I stood up and pedaled, and it worked. My knee did not give out. Even back on my own bike I will stand on the tougher climbs now.
After a few days back on my bike after the new wheel was installed, I could clearly tell that my gears were not properly adjusted. I had tried to adjust Margaret's rear derailleur when I was riding it. It would not go into the highest gear well. I had trouble getting to sit on my bike stand, so I gave up. Now I had a serious problem. I had to move the cable to take up some slack. Once I did that I was able to adjust it using the adjustment screws on the derailleur. My ride today went very smoothly so I guess it worked. I also adjusted Margaret's bike. It stayed in the stand today for some reason.
I still want to go on a long ride this summer. Something around 30 miles would be nice. I have been looking for trails around the area, and the Capital Crescent Trail looks good. Depending on where I get on it, it will be 25-30 miles down into Washington D.C and back out.