Pitt to DC: Gettin' Ready to Ride!

Cali and I typically have pretty cool vacations. We've traveled to Seattle, Paris, and Las Vegas. The last two summers we've been able to visit Utah for a month to see family and play. This summer we weren't so lucky. (Remember how most jobs don't give you the summers off?) Nevertheless, we wanted to have an adventure. Well, do we ever have one planned!

We are going to bike from Pittsburgh back to DC. That's right 350 miles along traffic-free rail/canal trails. We leave tonight for Pittsburgh and should arrive home on Tuesday, averaging about 70 miles a day. We did a practice run over the 4th of July by bike-camping along the C&O Canal trail; it was a pretty fun trip despite the rain. (See full trip report here). You can be certain I'll post up when we get back.

In the meantime, let's talk bike prep. Here's the rundown on our bikes:

Cranky's Bike: Singlespeed (40 x 16) 29er mountain bike with semi-slick tires and rack with panniers. The gearing is nearly perfect - light enough that I can cruise, tall enough to travel pretty fast. The tires have some knobbies for the C&O Canal trail; it's mostly gravelly double-track. I estimate I'll be carrying about 30 lbs among all the bags. The rear end is so heavy that the front seems awfully light and a bit squirrelly. (I could wheelie like crazy on this thing.)

Cranky's Weapon of Choice: Ready to Roll!

Mud Flap, for when it gets messy

Cali's Bike: 1x8 mountain bike with slicks and a seatpost-mounted rear rack. Cali'd been running her mountain bike as a single speed, but wanted a few more options on the trip. So I set her up with a rear derailleur and an 8-speed cassette. The suspension fork posed some real problems when I tried attach the clip-on fender. I gave up (eventually) and mounted the front fender to the back of the rack. It works beautifully, some of my best make-it-work cobbling. Let's hope it doesn't rain too much, though. Otherwise she'll miss that front fender!

Cali's Rig: Lookin' Sharp!

Rear Fender Attachment: Fender is easily detached and stowed when not needed.

Other Notes: On a trip like this I worry a bit about, well, everything. I put together a pretty thorough tool kit. (Cali's got another on her bike.) Let's hope we never need to use 'em!

Only thing missing: extra spokes!

One of my big bike decisions was to run flat pedals on this trip. Ever since I went with Speedplay pedals on my road bike, I've never ridden without being clipped in. (I ride Crank Brothers Candy's on my mountain bike.) At this point, it simply feels strange to ride flats. BUT, I wanted to travel light on this trip, so I installed some quality flats and have been "practicing" all sumer long with them. So, if you happen to be on the trail and see a tall, skinny cyclist pedaling along in Crocs, that's me! Give me a wave!

Loose Ends: Mr. E Science Theater 2008

This last school year I tried a new project with my Honors physics classes, called "Mr. E Science Theater." Inspired by an article I had read in an old copy of The Physics Teacher, I envisioned my students giving presentations on some physics-related subject of their choosing. I had a few goals in mind:

• High Quality: I wanted my students to put together a high quality presentation. Not only did I want clear and scientific explanations, I wanted interesting and engaging presentations.
• Student Choice: Very much related to my high quality standard, I wanted to give my student's some choice in what and how they presented. I offered three broad subject options: science fair presentations, physics problem re-enactments and explanations, and real life physics demonstrations. Likewise, they were given three options on when/how to present: in-class live presentation, in-class video presentation, and out-of-class live presentation.

The project went surprisingly well for a first-time, shot-in-the-dark attempt. (My motto in life: when doing anything for the first time, survival is success.) As expected, some groups absolutely loved it and ran with it. Other groups were decidedly less enthusiastic. To give you some idea of the quality of some of the presentations, check out this video one group made to preface their calculations of their cars' horsepower:



I LOVE it! One of the student's parents later told me how impressed he was that his son had been willing to spend Spring break making a physics video. Of course, there is very little obvious physics in the clip, but from the speedometer scenes the students' did calculations and came to reasonable results. Hooray!

As a follow-up to the project, I created a wiki about the project and had my students "edit" it. The wiki I created was really just an outline. Students were expected to add details and suggestions to the outline. You can see the wiki here. Responses were good, but many were somewhat repetitive and borderline (and not-so-borderline) silly. I like the wiki as a way to encourage collaboration, but I think I need to refine my (written and expressed) expectations.

This project is definitely in the schedule for next year. Now that I have some quality examples to show, I'm excited to see what my students will do!

Feeling Cranky: Tour de France Thoughts

Being the opinionated cyclist that I am, you may like to know what my thoughts are on this year's Tour de France. Well, here they are...

*crickets*

Yup, I've seen all of 5 seconds worth of Tour footage via the interwebs. Nevertheless, I, like many cycling fans, have been shocked that the doping dramas continue, despite the concerted efforts of the ASO to assure a clean race. Most shocking was the revelation that Ricardo Ricco, rising Italian cycling star, was caught using the blood thickener EPO. Since then, I've read many opinion articles and op ed's about the incident. None were as sensitive, thorough, or entertaining as the following:



This concludes my obligatory Tour de France post.