A broken spoke: four views

DT Swiss straight gauge 2mm spoke. Velocity deep-V rim. Rear wheel, single-speed disk hub, so spoke tension is essentially the same on both sides. The spoke came just far enough through the nipple that I could cut a slot with a hacksaw and back the spoke out. The spoke was about three full turns from bottoming out the nipple. These pictures are of the piece of the spoke that was in the nipple.

Spokes break at the elbow. Everybody knows that. Why did this spoke break in the nipple? Manufacturing defect? Damage during wheel building (by me)? Some random damage from falling into one of Seattle's piano-swallowing chuckholes?

From the pictures, it looks like a fatigue failure from some damage near the end of threading on the spoke.

I took these pictures with the Lytro camera Aki gave me for Christmas. Not really a useful camera for portraits, but actually pretty good as a macro camera. Being able to take pictures with multiple, very thin focal planes is pretty much ideal for this kind of picture.

Thanks to Chris Heg for insights into what fatigue looks like.

Traffic Hazard

This pole used to have a sign on it. The sign was either removed or stolen. Now there's just a pole. This pole is in the sidewalk approach to the Fremont Bridge southbound, where as many as a thousand bikes and (literally) uncounted pedestrians pass. (Bikes are directed onto the sidewalk here, to avoid the open bridge grating that motor vehicles use.)

At this point, traffic narrows to go over the bridge. Depending on traffic coming the other way, a bike rider or pedestrian may want to move near to where this sign is to give oncoming traffic a wide berth. (Pedestrian with dog, bike with trailer, drunk with attitude, etc.) This could easily cause an accident. Any sidewalk users could be affected, but it's obvious how this could be dangerous for a bike. The pole is hard to make out from the background, particularly on a cloudy day. Hanging up handlebars or a trailer on the poll could easily result in getting thrown from the bike, into bridge traffic.

It's a matter of time before something bad happens, and somebody rushes out to fix this.

[Update: I submitted this as an incident on Bikewise.org]

Refactoring the Human Genome

I I am pleased to announce my participation in a bold new effort to refactor the human genome. This effort is without a doubt the most ambitious project ever seriously attempted to ameliorate the long term burden of human disease. The potential benefits are vast.

The team behind this project is a biology A-Team that I'm honored to be a member of. Heading up this effort: noted evolutionary bioinformaticist Dan Graur. The core team also includes renowned bioinformaticists Yichen Zheng and Nicholas Price, talented genomic architect Ricardo B. R. Azevedo, and population geneticist Eran Elhaik. Advisers include Larry Wall, fresh off the successful Perl 6 project; noted computer language theorist Edmund Arranga, and celebrated biostatistician and data analyst Lawrence Sanna. Beyond the specific technology, important philosophical guidance was provided by Francis Galton. This project makes use of important work by Francois Pinard, although he is not directly involved in the project.

The thesis of this star-studded group is simple, but like many simple things hidden in plain sight, it takes a true genius like Graur to realize the potential that lies before us, within reach. When you ask Graur why nobody has proposed such a project before, he just smiles wryly and shakes his head. "The human genome is rife with dead copies of protein-coding and RNA-specifying genes that have been rendered inactive by mutation. It's time we stopped passively accepting this situation and did something about it."

Our project: refactoring the human genome. "Refactoring" is a term from computer science, meaning to reorganize the internal structure of a code base without changing the (intended) external behavior. This term has been borrowed into bioinformatics, where the meaning is equivalent: the reorganization of the structure of a genome without changing the behavior of the organism. As Graur eloquently observed, at least 85% of the human genome is plain junk. Most of it is not transcribed, and even much of which is transcribed is by definition nonfunctional, because it is not subject to purifying selection.

Why does this matter? Even though it is not important to our normal genomic lives, this junk DNA is an important source of disease. Most obviously cancer, but also genetic disorders such as converse errors that can cause acute adhominem ataxia.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, a function can be assigned to a DNA sequence if and only if it is possible to destroy the function by removing the DNA sequence. Put another way: by definition, eliding nonfunctional DNA does not change the organism's function. Since 85% of DNA is nonfunctional, suppressing it has no effect on normal biology. Why is it worth eliding? Studies by Graur's colleagues show that transcription of junk DNA is highly active in immortal cancer cell lines. The implication is obvious: the key to curing cancer is to attack it at the root: junk DNA.

Thus our project, dubbed RECODE (short for "Refactoring to Eliminate redundant non-CODEing regions") will use well-understood recombinant gene technology. The result will be a human genome that is between one third and one sixth the present size. The project is ambitious. The benefits clear. The savings in file storage alone amount to millions of dollars a year, and will only grow as genome sequencing becomes more common.

Technically, the project is straightforward, although the bioinformatics is a challenge. The hardest part, and the part I'm personally most excited about, is ensuring backward compatibility of the new genome which we've taken to calling "H. sapiens 2.0" with the present "H. sapiens 1.0" genome. Personally, I'm not sure backward compatibility is actually essential, but politically, it's probably indispensable. For one thing, there is the installed-base to think of.

As often happens, backward compatibility will involve compromises. In particular, rebalancing chromosomes will probably have to wait for a future "H. sapiens 3.0" project. But an elegant implementation of backward compatibility gives humanity a smooth upgrade path to a genomically more healthy future.

This project is so new, it doesn't even have a proper web site yet. However, basic information is available here.

Return of the road spikes

The city puts these spikes in the street to hold down air hoses for traffic studies. The spikes are supposed to be pounded flush with the pavement after they aren't being used any more. But as I've found (over and over and over) they are often not pounded flat.

This spike is on N. 34th in Fremont. It's on the south side of the street, maybe two meters from the curb, near the Sunday Market marker for stall 47, about where the new steel towers carry the new high-tension line cross the street. The Burke building is on the south side of the street here.

This is a busy bike route, with several bikes a minute passing through this way during rush hour. On Sundays, this is a very busy walking route, with people packed along the street in good weather.

If these spikes are not pounded down, they can cause a bike flat tire or even loss of control. Eventually they work their way loose. The resulting spike is several inches of hardened steel that can cause a serious injury to a person, a flat tire on a car, and other damage. This is why it's Seattle policy that these spikes get pounded down. Yet it doesn't happen. Now somebody has to take time out of their day to come back out and pound the spike down. It would have been better to do it right the first time.

Weight, Wait!

Another lead wheel weight on my commute. This one is a biggie. Feels like at least half a pound of lead. Well weathered. Probably heavier when it fell off. I've been finding a lot of these on Seattle streets, even though putting them on cars is now illegal. Do we have to let them all fall off and get ground into dust?

Today's Debris Haul Weighs on Me

Today's haul of debris in or near the bike lane was substantial.

That big hunk of steel is a tire puncture waiting to happen, as are the screw and the masonry anchor. And the battery, while less toxic than the old days, is still not something that should be in the street.

But far more impressive: four lead wheel weights. These can get knocked off when the car wheel goes in a pothole, and Seattle has plenty of potholes, but Dexter was repaved only about a year ago, so it's not potholes. Mostly, I reckon, people knock one of these weights off when they hit the curbs a bit hard while parking.

Rain will wash glass into the storm sewer, but lead weights are too dense for that to be likely. Streetsweepers clean Seattle streets infrequently if at all, so the weights hang around, getting run over, bouncing around near the gutter. All that abuse wears off lead as dust, until eventually the weight breaks up and gets washed into the storm sewer, where I suppose it eventually ends up in the Sound.

This grieves me. Heavy metal pollution is one of the least-fixable pollution problems in the Sound. But moreover, where does that lead dust go? Into our yards, and homes, and into us. As a recent article makes clear, our current lead exposure, while much lower than in the past, is still far higher than is healthy. Moreover, lead persists in the environment for a very long time.

So why are lead wheel weights still legal? At the very least, weights on the outside of the rim, which probably fall off as often as not, should not be allowed.

But if we can't outlaw lead wheel weights just yet, maybe we at least ought to sweep them up before they pollute our city?

Update: My friend Geoff Hazel points out that installing new lead wheel weights is already illegal in Washington State, as well as California and a few other states. Of course, it will take a while for these lead weights to disappear, and it will take much, much longer for the lead dust in the environment to go where it's going to go. But this is progress.

Clothes Moths

The shame of wool moths. Nobody likes to talk about it, but let's face it: many bikers, especially randonneurs, own their share of wool, and that wool is not always stored clean. These conditions favor wool moths. What I've learned might be useful to others, and if anyone has more knowledge to share I'd like to learn more.

We had a wool moth infestation. It probably traveled up with me from Portland, lay dormant for years, and resurfaced in 2004 or so. I thought we cleaned the problem up, but I have now learned the measures I took were probably entirely ineffective. The moths came back last summer. (Or, it may have been an infection from a wool item bought used. Now I quarantine wool that comes into our house, regardless of whether it was bought new or used.) I threw out some expensive suits and one very nice wool hiking sweater. I took measures. The problem abated, but has not entirely gone away.

When the problem recurred last winter, I found moth damage on the sweater and two wool suits. I threw out the now hopelessly damaged items and started researching.

There are two problem moth species: the webbing moths and the casemaking moths. The casemaking moths are rare here, and the casings they leave behind are obvious. You can get pheromone traps for the webbing moths. The "Pro-Pest" ones seem to work well and are available via Amazon and etc. The traps attract male moths, which then get stuck to the trap. They are supposed to be good for 3 months, but seem to still be pretty effective after 6 months, at least at room temperature.

When I discovered the moths, I ordered some traps, and looked into what wool moths liked and what killed them. Clothes moths like dark, warm places that smell like humans. They lay their eggs in wool that has human sweat, urine, or the like on it, as this is what the larvae eat. Apparently they don't need the wool to live so much as our blood, sweat, and tears, so to speak. So clean wool is usually safe. Besides wool, moths will sometimes infect silk, down, and in rare cases even cotton.

Dry cleaning kills the moths, so everything dirty that was dry-clean only went straight to the cleaners. (Washing and drying clothes does not reliably kill moth eggs.)

Cold kills moths, but slowly. Suddenly taking clothes from room temperature to a cold freezer and leaving them there for a week should do it, but I am not super confident in this method.

Heat kills moths. Half an hour at 120 degrees should do it, so I cranked the sauna up to 140 degrees and put the remaining clothes in for about an hour. This method is more difficult than it seems. I used a radiant thermometer to find out what temperature the clothes were really at. Just because the room is 140 degrees doesn't mean the clothes are.

Permethrin kills moths. We have plenty of permethrin around. It's an insecticide. We treat clothing we are going to wear in areas where malaria is endemic. Once it dries on the clothing, it's almost entirely non-toxic to people. Also, permethrin repels bed bugs. We've never had bed bugs, but we visit a variety of hotels, so I treated our luggage inside and out with permethrin to discourage bed bugs from hitching a ride on our luggage. And, permethrin kills clothes moths. So I put on a respirator and the big rubber gloves and sprayed down all of the seams and crevices of all the closets that had had wool in them.

The permethrin and sauna treatments were hot, sweaty jobs, but seemed to work. I put the moth traps in the closets, and, well, moved on.

But I did some more research. I found out two interesting things:
- Moth speed of development is highly temperature dependent. This means that they are more likely to emerge in the summer.
- Carbon dioxide kills all life stages of moths.

A CO₂ concentration of as little as 15% should kill moths eventually, and higher concentrations should kill them in a few days. I decided that, to be sure, I'd shoot for a CO₂ concentration of over 95% and hold it for a week.

My first test was with a more-or-less airtight plastic storage box that I put the skiing woolens in at the end of ski season. I put about half a pound of dry ice wrapped in a rag at the bottom, put a heavy book on the lid, and left the latches open. As the dry ice sublimated ("melted"), the CO₂ gas would collect at the bottom, and displace air at the top. At the time, I didn't have a real way of measuring if it worked, but recently I found out it had. It doesn't take long doing this to realize that you can smell really high concentrations of CO₂. It's the smell of getting a fizzy drink up your nose, without the wet part. So, when I opened the box of winter woolens recently, I could smell the CO₂ that had been there since spring. I have to think that any moths or moth eggs were long dead.

I had decided to treat our woolens once or twice a year, just to be safe. My method was to buy Space Bag storage bags. These bags seal air tight, and they have a vacuum port. (Several of these bags are shown in the picture, above.) Put the woolens in the bag with a chunk of dry ice wrapped in a rag. Suck all the air out. Close the cover on the port until the bag starts to inflate. Open the port. As the pressure inside the bag rises, it will push air and CO₂ out the port, until the final CO₂ concentration will be quite high. Leave for a week. It works great. I know, because after I open the bags after a week, I can smell the CO₂ in the bag quite easily.

But a funny thing happened, just as I was about to embark on the Space Bag project: I had been checking the moth traps every week. Never a moth. I decided to Space Bag treat the woolens at the end of an unusually warm and dry August.

Literally as I was collecting the woolens to bag them, I checked the traps one last time. They all had moths, in some cases, quite a few. So now I know the traps work.

Where did the moths come from? I don't know. I literally checked all the wool and silk in the house, including carpets. Nothing. No holes, no dead moths, no webbing, nothing. Did they come from outside the house? Maybe. They might also have come from some bulky wool sweaters where damage might not be obvious.

Actually, none of my theories for where the moths came from are all that persuasive. So I don't really know. I treated with CO₂. Most of the woolens are in airtight storage now, and almost all of the rest will be soon. I ordered fresh traps. I plan on treating the woolens twice a year until we go two years with no moths in the traps.

To be continued....

My First Patent

Insilicos was issued a patent for diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. This is the first issued patent that I have been an inventor on. It's exciting, since the patent actually matters for our diagnostic work. The method is for analysis of proteins carried by HDL particles. It's directly related to our ongoing clinical study to predict heart attacks in advance from a blood test. I'm really excited about the potential for this test to be a breakthrough in diagnosing CVD. You never know for sure until you have the data in hand, but I'm optimistic.

We launched a new cloud service

My company Insilicos has formed a joint venture with the University of Washington to further develop and commercialize the Rosetta molecular modeling software developed in David Baker's lab. The product is Rosetta@cloud, a cloud-based service for protein modeling and similar services.

We've been working on getting this project going for most of a year. It's nice to see some real customer activity!

Haleakala

Last week, I rode from Wailea up to North Maui and then back south to the top of Halekala. 57 miles, 10,023' elevation gain. Aki and Sven met me at the top. It was a nice ride. Started in moonlight, rode up through mostly good weather, and finished in the spectacularly harsh landscape of the peak.

Shim, Shimery

Leo Stone reminded me of the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-derived adage "One man's beer can is another man's shim stock."

Well, I had some shimming to do, and I didn't have any shims in the house, so I went out and bought me a can of Rainier shims....

I had noticed a while ago that the front disc on my commuter bike was not true. This was undesirable, as it meant I couldn't have the pads as close as I'd like without them rubbing. You want the pads close, so you can brake as hard as you like without the brake levers bottoming out, especially so with road bike levers.

I finally got around to it and took the wheel off the bike, put it in my truing stand, and measured the lateral runout with the nice dial indicator Dad got me for Christmas. (Or maybe for my birthday? Hmm. It's been a busy winter....) Lateral runout was 6 mil. That seemed like a whole lot. I pulled the disc off, and the mounting face had less than half a mil runout. So definitely the disc, but what to do about it?

So I asked around, and that's when Leo hit me with his adage. (Good thing it wasn't an adze.) So I bought a can of Yakima's finest hops from the local Wino Convenience Store. After disposing of the, um, packing, I was left with an ample supply of 4.5 mil shim stock. (The picture shows my digital caliper. I would have used my vernier caliper, but then the picture would have been hard for you, my loyal reader, to interpret, at the resolution available.)

Now, how to make a few doughnut-shaped shims, otherwise known as washers? It was then I remembered Nick Carter admonishing me to read up on Jig and Fixture Design. The key to a good jig they say, is a lively tune, but what do they know? The key to a good jig, as Ed Hoffman asserts, is locating the work. If you can't locate the work, then how can you work it? It seems prima facie obvious, but there you are.

How shall we locate washers? By their holes shall we find them, I say. [To be continued.]

Why We Run

Bernd Heinrich, Why We Run. Bernd Heinrich had a weird upbringing, became a biologist, and had a serious amateur running career. This book is actually a mashup three books, which could be called: My Weird Life, What Animal Physiology Can Tell Us About the Physiology of Human Running, and How I Set a Long Distance World Record.

All three books are pretty interesting, although I did skip some of the biographical material to get to the physiology and running bits. It's not that Heinrich's life wasn't interesting, it's that he doesn't really explain the most interesting part. He was a little boy in a war zone; it's easy to understand how that would affect one's outlook, and Heinrich explains consequences one might not think of. On the other hand, his successful parents abandoned him for most of his childhood at an orphanage, so they could pursue their careers. This I found frustrating. Most parents could not do this. Why did his parents reach this decision? How did Heinrich feel about this? Considering that the orphanage wasn't a particularly pleasant place, what sort of relationship did he have with his parents as an adult? On this, the author is silent.

The best bits are the running bits, which are well-written and fun, and the physiology bits, which are somewhat scattershot but thought-provoking. The book meanders. I imagine it like sitting by the fire with Heinrich on a cold Vermont evening after a few glasses of wine. It's interesting, but I can't help checking my watch.

So why do we run? Heinrich argues that we're built to run long distances so that we can hunt by running prey to exhaustion. Despite his interest in animal models including migratory birds, Heinrich doesn't consider that being able to cover great distances would be equally useful in foraging and migrating.

Regardless, the idea that humans are built to continuously run distances beyond that of almost all land animals was controversial when this book was published, and less so now. Why We Run is still relevant despite its problems, because its key message is an important idea.

Paris-Brest-Paris - the full report

Here's the full story on my experience at Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP). Or at least a fuller story. So much happens in 80+ hours of bicycling like mad, the full story would be unbearably long, like PBP itself, in a way.

In short, PBP is the oldest bike event in the world that is still run, dating from 1891. Run every four years, it is now a timed "event," technically not a race, but everyone gets a time, and there are people who care a great deal about the finishing times. The course is from Paris to Brest, mostly along secondary roads, then back to Paris. Total length is 1230 km. (764 miles.) The course must be completed in 90 hours. Sleeping is allowed, but the clock does not stop for any reason. PBP is considered by many the greatest true amateur bike event in the world, and a stern test of endurance, skill, and determination.

For our trip, we rented an apartment in Paris, a quiet place on an enclosed courtyard, a few minutes' walk from the Arc de Triomphe. I've often wondered what life was like behind the big doors these courtyards have to the street. In this case, life was pleasant and very quiet, a contrast to the vibrant urban scene a few feet away. (At right, the entrance to our courtyard, which has a street address, a bit like a soi in Thailand.)

This meant I took a train to the start. I rode my bike to the train station, down the Champs Élysées. It was great to ride down the street I think of as the finale for the Tour de France. I arrived at the start line about 5:00 PM, by chance ending up in a group of about a dozen Seattle people.

The start of PBP is in waves, beginning at 6:00 PM. We ended up starting at 8:00 PM, and the three hours from when I arrived to the start were actually the hardest, mostly because of the heat. It was about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with no shade. Friends and family went and got us water, or else we would have used it up and started with no water. (At right: Team Seattle baking in the sun. L-R RBA Mark Thomas, Vincent Muoneke, Dan Jensen in dark hat looking down, Corey Thompson, Andy Speier in green hat.)

At about 7:30, we had our brevet cards processed and we went into the starting chute. There were several speeches. I was next to Narayan Krishnamoorthy, contemplating how long the speeches would last. At long last, the speeches stopped. And then we got a shorter version in English. In fact, the waves had to start 20 minutes apart. A nice jazz band might have been more entertaining, but speeches filled up the time, and the speakers were certainly enthusiastic. Of course, we were eager to be on the road and blow some of the stink off, so it seemed like forever.

Finally, at 8:00, we started. Many riders worry about crowding at the start, but it wasn't near as crowded as the start for STP, for example. I rather enjoyed the start. There were crowds all along, kids sticking their hands out for a side-five, people cheering. "This won't last," I told myself. I was wrong. Except for a few very lonely roads, mostly in the forest, we were cheered pretty much everywhere, day and night. (At right, my view of the starting line.)

They had the roads closed for us for a few kilometers, so as soon as things settled down a little, I started trying to get some work done. The weather report for Paris didn't look good for Monday, so I wanted to bank some miles in good weather. I ended up in a group with some Seattle guys I knew, including Steve DeGroot whom I rode the last day of the Tahuya Hills 600 with, and Ray McFall, whom I also met on that 600. I started pulling a paceline at about 30 km/h. That sounds fast, but conditions were good and I wasn't sure they'd last. Mitch Schoenfeld was right behind me, and pulled the paceline after I peeled off. Wind was light and in fact we had a bit of a tailwind. The weather had cooled to the point where I was comfortable in just shorts and a light jersey. (I didn't add a layer all night.) And no rain. Moderate rain doesn't slow you down much, but even light rain often comes with wind, which in this case would have been a headwind.

I had another reason to hurry: since I had been among the last starters, I had something like 4,000 riders ahead of me. I was worried about lines at controls, and lines for food. I still had my 90 hours to finish, but there is usually a big bolus of riders very close to the time limit the whole ride, and I didn't think I could stay behind them the whole time, so getting out in front of as many of them as possible early seemed like a reasonable risk to take. In retrospect, I'll never know whether it was a good risk to take.

Finally, I wanted to get to the control to change my bike shorts. Three hours sweating in the sun before we even started had left me wanting a fresh pair of bike shorts much sooner than I expected.

Steve had a minor mechanical and fell back without me noticing. (That's pretty normal. Even with a mirror, you spend much more time worrying about what's in front of you in a paceline than what's in back of you.) The paceline shattered when we came to some hills, so after a while it was just Ray and me. Usually there were a few riders around. We'd come up on groups from the previous wave and pass them. Once in a while a fast paceline would come up beind us, probably from the wave after us. Once or twice, we hopped on the back of one of these for a while.

We rode together for a long time, as the sun set on pretty little towns outside Paris, and then on through the night as the country became hillier. At some point, Ray and I got separated, and I rode on by myself.

I reached our first control of Villaines-la-Juhel at 5:00 AM, exactly 9 hours after I started, for an average pace of 24.5 km/h. Lines at the control were minimal. I got back on the road in about 30 minutes, even with a change of shorts.

This first night fit into a pattern. For the whole ride, I felt strongest during the nights, and weakest in the afternoons. I like riding at night, but this is not a pattern I've observed before. Residual jet lag? Side-effect of an evening start? I don't know.

I reached Fougeres, second control, at about 2:00 in the afternoon. I think it was there I saw Drew Buck for the first time. I'd heard of Drew before: for the last few PBPs, he's ridden an antique bicycle, in period costume. This time, he was on a 111 year-old French bicycle. It was a fixie, of course, with large wheels that made the gearing rather tall for the hills we were in. I'm sure it was rather heavy too. Drew was on a fine bicycle, but he was riding a rather different PBP than I was. I told Drew I'd seen his sister at the train station. She was worried about catching the start, since Drew started with the special bikes, 2.5 hours earlier than I did. (Right: Drew Buck's bike. That's my somewhat more modern ride in the background.)

We rolled into Loudeac to a crowd. I'm pretty sure the whole town was there. Shortly after we arrived, the first riders from the 80-hour start came through. The crowd let out a huge cheer. Pandemonium in the control while the race officials got the leaders in and out of the control as fast as possible. I saw Seattle rider Chris Ragsdale, but things were so chaotic that it wasn't clear what was going on and I didn't get a good look at him.

Loudeac was the earliest place I had considered stopping. When I was ready to go, I didn't feel sleepy, it wasn't dark yet, and the weather looked good, so I decided to press on. I had a nice rain jacket in a drop bag in Loudeac, but it didn't seem necessary. I decided to ride on to Saint Nicolas du Pelem, a non-control stop where I could eat and sleep if I wanted. I started out feeling indifferent, but the rolling hills soon put me in an aggressive mood. That, and a guy in a recumbent warning me to slow down because the country ahead was hilly. I'm sure he was just trying to be helpful, but I'm a Seattle boy: hills made me. See you in Saint Nicolas du Pelem if you get there before I leave. (I never saw him again.)

By now, I was seeing groups of 80-hour riders coming the other way, sometimes in large pacelines, sometimes in small groups. I reached Saint Nicolas du Pelem at dusk, hungry. I quickly ate my second dinner. There were beds available, but Carhaix was only 32 km away, and I wasn't really feeling sleepy, and it looked like a nice night.

Pretty much as soon as Saint Nicolas du Pelem was out of sight, a fierce electrical storm blew up. At first it looked like it would stay off to the south, but soon the lightning strikes were closer and I was spattered with rain. It looked like it could get ugly. Fortunately, the bats were out, and bats always lift my spirits, so I tried not to think about how wet I was probably going to be in a few minutes, and pressed on.

There are now many windmills in Western France, and they have red airplane warning lights at night. This stretch of road is memorable to me as lonely, with giant red-eyed cyclopes quite close, swinging their arms in the gloom, as bats flew silently all around. I passed a bike or two, but past Saint Nicolas du Pelem I remember only one person on that road, a man standing alone in the dark, who called out "7 km to Carhaix" in French. Merci. Merci boucoup, l'homme dans l'ombre.

I got to Carhaix just as it started really raining. In fact, I got very lucky. People even 10 minutes behind me had to pull off the road, sometimes with minimal cover, as a full-on thunderstorm soaked the road and anyone on it, while lightning struck frighteningly close.

In Carhaix, I was told there were now no beds in Brest. Not like I particularly wanted to tackle Roc'h Trevezel, the only part of the ride that really deserves the term "mountain pass," in the dark. Furthermore in a downpour with only my emergency rain vest. Furthermore with no sleep. Furthermore during an electrical storm on a road where people have more than occasionally been killed by lightning. But then, to get to Brest, and either have to ditch nap or turn right around and do it again?

Thus began my only experience with PBP organization that was not wholly positive and resembled the stereotype of French bureaucracy. The process of getting a bed in Carhaix, unlike at every other control, seemed to involve a long debate in French among a half dozen volunteers, consultation of both a computer and a paper spreadsheet, and many calculations and incantations on scraps of paper. I am not in the least exaggerating. There were maybe 8 people in line ahead of me, and it took me 40 minutes to reach the front of the line. At which point, there were no beds available. In fact, it transpired that there were dozens of beds available, but no blankets. Most of us had clothing adequate (if not ideal) for a a cold and wet night out of doors. A blanket was really almost a hindrance. Suddenly, the bed assignment process became as efficient as the Paris Metro at rush hour, and I was pleasantly unconscious on an air mattress, sans couverture.

When I woke up 4 hours later, I ran into Steve DeGroot. Steve had been a little behind me, and had been hammered by the storm. He came to a little town, where a cafe was open all night. He got something to eat and dried out a little. The people there offered him a bed in the back, so he slept for a few hours and started out the next morning, meeting up with me in Carhaix about 5 AM on Tuesday. We rode to Brest together. It started out dark and a little foggy. As we got to the peak of Roc'h Trevezel, it became really foggy, to the point where I wondered whether even my big light was enough. I expected the fog to thin once the sun came up, but if anything it got thicker.

We reached the pass in heavy fog. We saw several people asleep (or at least not moving), wrapped in space blankets near the pass. It looked like a miserable if not dangerous way to spend the night. As we descended, the fog thinned enough that we didn't have to ride the brakes the whole way down.

And that was the big Roc, but we still had 30 km yet to ride to get to Breast, and it was coastline, so hardly flat. And by now we had a headwind. Everybody I talked to said the stage into Brest was the hardest.

Brest is a gritty seaport. Refineries and oil and gas tankers seem to be important businesses. Much of the town comprises remarkably tedious buildings in doubtful repair. Still, there is a nice castle, and they're putting a streetcar through town. Plus, I always take a perverse pleasure in filthy industrial districts, so I didn't mind riding through one on the way in to the control.

I saw Drew Buck again at Brest. I think he must have done less sleeping than me. I had made up 2.5 hours on him in the first 400 km, but thereafter our times were similar. Plus, I was always catching up to him after sleeping. Sleep or no, he looked awfully chipper for a guy who had just finished a hilly stage in his single tall gear.

Steve and I ran into Steve Davis. The three of us decided to ride together back to Carhaix and see how it went. We had a pleasant conversation on many things, as I recall.

The ride back to Carhaix was less dire. The route was less steep that way. Also, our headwind was now a tailwind and at the pass it was really blowing. The people coming up the other way looked uniformly miserable. (Except one cheerful fellow, go figure.) Given the time, they were going to have to kick it up to make Brest before the control closed, and now they had to kick it up into the teeth of an awful lot of breeze they probably weren't expecting.

Well, we moved along well enough. From here to almost the end, we were on roads we'd already seen. We were on the way back, a cheerful thought.

Somehow, Steve Davis got ahead, while Steve DeGroot and I thought he was behind. We were worried about him, so we waited about 10 minutes at the bottom of a hill. When no approaching riders reported a crash or mechanical, we decided he must have slipped past us. Back in Carhaix, we saw him, and the mystery was solved.

We had a nice ride back through the hills from Carhaix to Loudeac, getting a look at the country in daylight. I expected the control at Loudeac to be quiet, since the fancy riders were long gone, but was surprised to see the whole town still at the control, still buzzing with excitement. I think I even saw familiar faces. Just like everywhere else, they cheered us wildly, despite us being just another bunch of guys on bikes.

I do not think I will ever get over the enthusiasm of the PBP crowds. Particularly as an American, when people in cars or on the street take any notice of you at all, it's almost always somewhere on the confusion-hostility spectrum. At PBP, cars trapped behind us honked as they passed, and the passengers waved through opened windows and yelled "Bon route!" to us. At PBP, I went from a lynchpin of social confict to a default cultural hero and defender of a grand tradition. Being relentlessly cheered and admired while you ride like mad for what seems like a month does odd things to one's worldview. I can see why people keep coming back to PBP.

By Loudeac, Steve and I had been riding 48 hours on no more than 4 hours of sleep. Naturally, we decided to press on. Tinteniac was 85 km away. That seemed a bit much, but there were beds in Quedillac only 60 km km away, which seemed manageable. We left Loudeac around dark.

Out of Loudeac, we rode with a guy from Japan. He didn't have much English, but seemed to be having a good ride. He eventually fell back on a hill.

It was about this time that my left leg started acting up. I'd noticed a little stiffness, but hadn't thought much of it. Little aches and pains come and go on rides like this. But on the way to Quedillac, it became clear that I was facing a more serious problem. I clearly had an inflamed tendon that was limiting the range of motion of my ankle. If it got much worse, then pedaling would become very complicated.

We made Quedillac, and agreed to stop for 4 hours. I took as much naproxen as I thought I could without it coming back up and keeping me awake. I fell asleep quickly to empty thoughts. The volunteer's touch woke me quickly, and I felt refreshed. My ankle, unfortunately, wasn't much different. More naproxen and we hit the road. At first I was awfully stiff, but felt much better as we got underway. Soon, we were in Tinteniac. I visited the medical tent there. They gave me ice, which probably did nothing, and told me that there was a real doctor in Fougeres, a mere 55 km down the road, who had access to anti-inflammatory cream. That lifted my spirits considerably. (Right: bike at Quedillac. Nice honeymooon. Drew Buck's bike was also here, as I recall.)

All I remember about the 3 hours to Fougeres was concluding that the odds were against me being able to finish. My ankle was generally swollen now, and if trends continued, my options became quite limited. I could pedal one-legged for perhaps 20 km. If it was the last 20 km and I had time, then that would be OK, but I had over 300 km (as long as STP, but much steeper) left to ride. That was too far for me to ride on one leg. If things got even a little worse, then it was over, 60 hours of reasonably good riding and four years of dreams notwithstanding.

At Fougeres, I could barely walk. I hobbled over to the medical tent. The volunteer EMT referred me to the doctor, who conferred with a more senior doctor. (The senior MD looked like 90% of French doctors I've ever met. They must take a class in how to dress and groom so to be immediately identifiable as a French MD.) The senior doctor manipulated my ankle, apparently to be sure it wasn't broken, and said something in French. The other doctor applied anti-inflammatory cream, then she said "well, good luck finishing." Great. Thanks. I'll see about that.

The anti-inflammatory cream seemed to help, so I felt a bit better from Fougeres to Villanes-la-Juhel. I went to the medical tent, but they did not have a doctor, and so could not prescribe anti-inflammatory cream. I fell asleep on the grass for 10 minutes waiting for Steve, then we got some food in a school gymnasium. The building was nothing fancy. Corrugated steel roof and walls. I imagine it is bitterly cold and drafty in winter. Villanes has a lovely castle, but not much money these days, I reckon. I looked at kid's art stuck on the walls, some of it quite good. I wondered what kind of life it was living in an ancient hilltop town in "deep France." Anyway, the crowd was crazy. Like everywhere, the whole town was there, watching us adjust our bikes in the control like fans at a formula one paddock. Nonstop commentary over a loudspeaker. It was literally unreal. (Right: "paddock" at Villanes. This picture doesn't really capture the scale and enthusiasm of the crowds.)

Not getting anti-inflammatory cream in Villanes did not improve my attitude, to say the least, but the country was familiar and pretty, and it was evening, so as usual my mood soon improved. As it got darker, I felt stronger. I'm probably lucky Steve advised not pushing the pace too much, as I surely felt stronger than I really was.

Villanes was the first control on the way out, but on the way back there were 3 more between Villanes and the finish: a secret control, Mortagne-au-Perche, and Dreux. We hit the secret control at 11 pm. Free beer! Tempting, but we passed. We got to Mortagne at about 11:30. A short, fierce climb up to the control. Probably not as steep as it seemed, a sign that we were weaker than we realized.

I went to the medical tent. Again, no doctor, so no anti-inflammatory cream. This is the point where people start getting Shermer's neck, and that seemed to be the stock-in-trade of this facility. I gather they go through a fair number of neck braces here. I ran into one guy with Shermer's neck, but that was not the extent of his problems, he was convinced that someone had sabotaged his bike, and very agitated. He had surrendered his brevet card, which means he had abandoned, and was trying to get his brevet card back so he could continue. I tried to convince him that Shermer's neck was a matter of physics, not of will, but it was like two feverish four-year-olds trying to have a conversation. You say some words, and get different words back. I suggested massage of the front of his neck (sternocleidomastoid and scalenes muscles). He asked what else he could do, and I mentioned that, when all else fails, some people prop up their head with a water bottle attached to their stem.

At Villanes, I concluded that if I was finishing PBP, I was committing to between a few weeks and a few months for my leg to really recover. I decided it was worth it, as long as the situation didn't deteriorate too much. By now, I was used to the idea that a hobble was the best walk I could manage, and I was one bad dismount from the bike away from a DNF. I posted the picture at right on Facebook, with the message, "Pain is temporary, quitting is permanent." I made the posting as a personal commitment to press on, despite the difficulties. Several conversations with doctors convinced me that I wasn't doing permanent damage. Pain was information, nothing more. I would continue until I was unable, simple as that.

At Mortagne, Steve convinced me that 2 hours off my feet would do me good, and he didn't mind some sleep either, as he hadn't had three hours in a row unconscious since the morning before we started. No point resting my leg awake, so I rented a cot, promptly fell asleep, and awoke quickly at around 2:00 AM Wednesday.

While I slept, my ankle had become quite stiff. I couldn't even hobble properly. I got something to eat, and ran into some friends of the guy with Shermer's neck. He had succeeded in retrieving his brevet card, and had gone back out on the course. The whole situation seemed foreboding at best. [Postscript: I got email from this guy indirectly after I got back to Seattle. He did go back on the course. His Shermer's Neck did recur after a few hours, but he propped his head up with a water bottle and was able to finish.]

Stopping had been a disaster, it seemed, since I was just getting worse as time went on. But the air was cold, which was good, since I like the cold.

But my ankle seemed unworkable. I prepared as best I could and got back on the bike, Steven and I headed down a long descent into the night. So far so good, but you don't pedal steep descents.

The one rule for me on this PBP is that everything goes better at night. So for whatever reason, I loved that descent. I loved the old stone walls and the trees. When it came time to pedal, I discovered things were much better than I had realized. I had stiffened up as I slept, but apparently healed some as well. As the night wore on, I felt stronger and stronger. We rode through what seemed like a very remote forest, and some old, quiet towns, finally too late at night after too many days for many people to be out. Except, two boys in the dead of night handing out sugar cubes. And a child who I think snuck downstairs to watch the riders from a window. When I waved, the child waved back wildly. By the last 30 km to Dreux, I felt a fire in the furnace. I got down in the drops, and started pulling pacelines at 25-30 km.

We ran across Drew Buck one last time. I asked how he was feeling, and he said "up against it." He asked how far to Dreux. When I told him 24 km, he didn't seem pleased. (Drew ended up digging deep and finishing with less than half an hour to spare.)

It started getting light as we approached Dreux, our fourth sunrise since we started. At this point, I was beginning to believe I was going to make it. With 10 hours of sleep total, I felt focused and alert. We had 8 hours left to do less than 4 hours of riding. My ankle wasn't getting better, but it didn't seem to be getting worse, either.

Dreux is an old Roman town, with some quite old bits, and some newer development that appears nicely done. It's a small town like those we went through to the West, but there is obviously more money here. The control was a sports center. At Dreux, we met up again with Steve Davis. Mark Thomas, our RBA, was there, as was Andy Speier (who didn't sleep a wink during the whole ride), Joe Platzner, and Corey Thompson, all Seattle boys. We decided to ride to the finish together. (Right: Dreux control.)

We started out on the road. I quickly pulled over to call Aki and tell her my estimated finish time. In my haste and confusion, I called my Paris landlady by mistake, but she seemed not at all distressed, and promised to call Aki and tell her.

The last 65 km is comparatively flat, through pretty forest and a few small towns. It was mid-morning. The sun was out. Conditions were beautiful. My ankle was flexible enough that I could stand on the pedals for the few hills, which were short and mostly in the shade. There were even a few fun downhills to carve through. We passed old (Roman?) roads with straight lines of trees, fields, and forests. And still, of course, groups of people on the side of the road, clapping and cheering like mad.

The suburbs right around St ­Quentin en­ Yvelines are not the prettiest, but there are some nice parks, and besides everything was wrapped in morning sunshine and soon to be done. We finished as a group in 87 hours, 31 minutes, almost 2.5 hours to spare. Not as fast as I'd expected, but a finish is a finish, and under the circumstances, I was very happy. (Right: finishing as a group with friends from Team Seattle. You can see my bike headlight.)

I'd wondered how I'd feel at the end, either overwhelmed with emotion or calm with exaustion? I ended up somewhere in-betweeen, pleased by the good fortune of finishing with friends.

Aki and Sven saw me finish. I didn't know for sure if they'd be there, and there was a big noisy crowd, so I didn't pick them out. But they found me in the control and helped me get everything sorted.

Then I got a glass of wine from the finishers tent. I missed the closing celebration, because it was logistically too much, given my ankle, so I missed the jersey trade and still have my Seattle one. Oh well, I didn't go to Paris to trade jerseys, I went to see if I had an ancien in me. Turns out I did. So there's that.

Follow me at Paris-Brest-Paris

Some of you have asked how to follow me live during Paris-Brest-Paris.

The short answer is, you can follow me on the PBP web site, on this blog, or on Facebook. There is also a live webcam of the start.

If you want to see the route, a rough map of the course can be found here. Scroll down the page for links to detailed maps of each stage, with elevations and so on.

The event starts for me at around 18:00 French time on 21 August. That's 9:00 AM on Sunday, August 21 in Seattle. I will finish between 70 and 90 hours later, probably sometime on Thursday, Seattle time.

I will have a chip on my shoe. Every time I pass a control, my time at that control will be recorded, and you can view the results online here. You will be asked for my frame number, which is 4470

Update: you can follow all of the Seattle riders here.

The first control is the start. They start us in waves of 500 beginning at 18:00 (French time) and lasting for about 2.5 hours. You have 90 hours to finish, based on the time your wave started. I'm not sure how this will be reported on the web site. If they give you my elapsed time, it's simple. If they just give you the time at each control, you have to look at my actual start time and do a little math.

About 9 hours after I start, I should roll into the next control at Villaines-la-Juhel. After that, I should clear a control roughly every 4 to 5 hours until I stop for sleep. Unless there are problems, I'll sleep somewhere between Loudéac and Brest, most likely either Carhaix or Brest. I'll try to blog and put something on Facebook when I stop to sleep, but I may not be able to, so absence of an update just means I'm sleeping and wasn't able to conveniently provide an update.

Wherever I sleep, I should be leaving Brest and on my way back somewhere between the 37 and 47 hour marks. This should be late Monday or early Tuesday, Seattle time.

From Brest back to Paris, my plans are less definite, and depend on how I feel. I plan to stop once or maybe twice on the way back to rest, most likely at Loudéac and/or Villanes-la-Juhel. So once I reach either of these places on the way back, it could easily take me 7 or 8 hours to reach the next control.

There are two more controls on the way back: Mortagne au Perche and Dreux. Mortagne au Perche is only 140 km from the finish, so if I get there with 7 or more hours left, it's looking pretty good. Dreux is a mere 65 km from the finish. If I have 3 hours left at that point, I should be able to do it, assuming I'm not completely spent.

There is a live webcam of the start. Select the "Web TV" menu and then the option "Live." There may also be other live coverage at this address.

Since this is France, there is an official pastry for Paris-Brest-Paris, called the Paris Brest, first made in 1891. Here is a recipe. To the right is a picture of the pastry, which my colleague Natalie brought to work, in celebration of my impending ride.

10,000

Yesterday, I put the 10,000th mile on the fast bike. This is the bike Aki gave me for my birthday when it was clear I wasn't going to make it to Cuba any time soon. When I got it, I said I'd put 10,000 miles on it.

It's a Trek Madone 5.2. It's a bit like the hatchet that's been in the family for generations, although it's had 3 new handles and a new head. The seat and seatpost were replaced almost right away. The stem and handlebars got swapped out last year for shorter and narrower. Two of the 3 chainrings are new, and I've worn out a bottom bracket and a few cassettes and chains. The wheels are brand new. I finally gave up on the tweaky bladed-spoke racer-boy wheels and built some wheels that are strong and stiff enough not to need truing every 500 miles. They're slightly heavier, but by surprisingly little.

But it's the same frame, mostly the same geometry, and the same basic bike. I've spent a lot of happy miles on this bike, and it's done for me what I've needed. It's been comfortable, reliable, fast, and nimble. It's a good bike.

Now I want at least 760 more miles out of the ol' girl. How many more after that, I do not reckon. Maybe a lot.