1 week, 3 round trip rides, 72 miles by bike

So I survived my 2nd full week of commuting. This week was somewhat warmer (low to mid 80s) but nothing really to complain about (aside from the bother of slathering on sunscreen sometimes before both the inbound and the outbound trip).

My legs are complaining but not as much as last week. I'm generally taking the Canada route to work and the Alameda route home. Alameda is shorter (11.5 miles versus 12.8 miles), not as hilly, but has much more street traffic -- making certain streets a little scary to ride on.

Here is a typical ride, complete with route map and elevation change. Gotta love the free iPhone app (available from MapMyRide.com) which tracks the rides (though I'm told there are better paid versions, which I'll investigate later).

Interesting things I've seen on my commute, partly because I'm now on a bike and partly because I'm just seeing more since it's a much longer ride:

• A zebra crossing painted on Canada that has horseshoe symbols in it
  
• Quite a lot of, um, evidence of horses along Canada, but no actual horses on the road -- though I have seen a half dozen horses in corrals along the side of the road
  
• Two Tesla Roadsters, my electric motor-powered brethren (alas, still have not convinced any of my wealthy coworkers to buy one)
• Two small vineyards (one on Canada and one on Alameda)
• A sign offering tractor-related services
  

On the way home, I find myself wishing I lived 2-3 miles closer to work. But the workout is good, and I must say it's a complete different "feel" arriving at my destination on either end. I'm much more alert and I feel like I've achieved something just by getting where I'm going.

One last thought in reflecting on Week 2: there is a sense (read the biking boards, for instance) that the electric motor is "cheating". While I understand why True Bikers believe that. If the bicycle is meant to augment human power, then adding electric power certainly spoils the purity of muscle + mechanical advantage = motion.

But I'm not in it for the Purity of Biking or glory or training so I can race. I'm in it primarily for the exercise (and the long-term health benefits thereof) and the sense of accomplishment. So I feel like my electronic steed helps me decide to bike more often than not. So the bike doesn't feel like cheating to me: it feels like the enzyme which lowers the activation energy so that the reaction can actually complete.

Besides, my flavor of electric bike doesn't have a throttle that just hauls me along: it's still quite a bit of work, as I'm guessing somewhere between a quarter and half of the power the system generates is consumed hauling itself around. After all, a good road bike weighs 15 pounds, and my bike weighs over 60 so something's got to move the 45 extra pounds.

As Insik suggests, I'll have to try the hills on a road bike a few weeks down the line. Stay tuned for the experiment, maybe in October.

My new ride

As promised, here are a few facts & thoughts about my new ride, the Giant Twist Freedom DX.

First, the facts:

• Giant calls it a hybrid bike, presumably to liken it to the hybrid cars like the Prius. Though for the rest of the industry, a hybrid bike is a cross between a road bike (think Tour de France racing style) and a mountain bike, so this is a little confusing.
  
• Like the Prius, the bike turns battery power into torque to help propel the bike and rider forward. In theory, the harder you pedal, the more assistance you get.
  
• Unlike the Prius, the batteries do not regenerate while coasting downhill.
• The bike has an electric motor integrated into the front wheel.
• There are four settings: Off, Eco, Normal, and Sport.
• Sport mode assists the most and Eco the least.
• When the assist system is Off, you get to feel what it's like to pedal a 62-pound monster of a bike. I assure you this is no fun, and I only have the system off when I'm rolling downhill.
• Unlike some motor systems like the BioX (my brother just got a bike with one of those), there is no electric throttle -- so you can ride it like a moped. No peddling = no go.
  
• You switch manually between the two batteries.
• Giant estimates the range thusly; these numbers seem a touch optimistic to me. Either that, or I'm a lot fatter than their test rider. In practical terms, a single battery lasts me about 30 miles, or call it a commute and a half on a route like this one with a few hills.

Now some thoughts after a couple training rides and 3 round-trip commutes:

• Overall, I quite like my trusty new steed. It will help me get in shape, and having the electric assist available will get me onto the bike more often than not.
• Without it, I probably would not have started commuting by bike. 
• I'm proud of the distance I've biked and look forward to some pounds coming off.
• Never before has arriving at work or at home seemed like such an achievement!  :-)
• The bike is a beast. Something about the size of the frame makes it seem very large. The good thing about this is it feels more stable on the road. But it is a 60+ pound monster, no two ways about it.
  
• How's it feel? The best way to describe how the bike feels is to say that it "flattens out" the terrain. Mild uphills feel like flat terrain; steep uphills feel like moderate uphills.
• I still have to work hard to get up 5% grades like Ralston Avenue -- but the electric assist makes it do-able for me without having to hop off and walk, or take a break.
• Riding position. The bike's geometry puts you in a very upright riding position, which takes pressure off your wrists and back since you're not hunched over.
• OTOH, sitting up straight with a loose T-shirt on basically turns your body and T-shirt into a sail. When the wind is blowing against you, this is not good. :-)
• This posture also makes it harder to get the right kind of leverage when peddling up big hills -- it's hard to come off the saddle and put your whole body into the effort.
  
• In general, I like this riding posture because it's relaxed and doesn't make my arms numb after a long ride. This is why I didn't get the very cool folding Swiss Bike with the BioX conversion kit like my brother -- the Swiss Bike's geometry has you bent over more, and I wanted a mostly comfortable posture for the commute.
• Sidebar: if you do want a Swiss Bike + BioX combo, visit the great folks at Velolectric Bikes in San Carlos. Very friendly and knowledgeable.
  
• I'm glad I got the 2-battery version. Giant makes a cheaper and lighter 1-battery version, but I've had a battery run out of juice on half of my rides, and being able to flip to the fully charged backup battery is a huge relief. The thought of biking up the 92 pedestrian path on my 60+ pound monster with no electric assistance brings tears to my eyes. :-)
• The saddle bags are useful but you need to pack carefully. The built-in saddle bags are really designed to protect the battery packs. But you can get a change of clothes and your lunch into them if you pack carefully. I've been wearing a backpack to carry stuff that won't fit (like my laptop), but am investigating ways to mount something on top of the racks to get the weight off my back and prevent the sweaty back phenomenon.
  

OK, more later. Leave questions in the comments if you have them.

New job -- and a new ride

So I started a brand new job today (very exciting) -- and even managed bike to and from the office (very sore but personally gratifying).

Some factoids about my new job and my new ride:

• Brand new job: Andreessen Horowitz Fund
• Brand new office: 2875 Sand Hill Road
• As psi points out, it may be outright illegal for a venture capitalist not to occupy a Sand Hill address.  :-)
  
• Total commute length: between 12-13 miles (Google Maps guesstimate until I get a bike computer)
• Furthest I've ever gone on a bike in 1 day: true
• Total commute time: about an hour each way
• Commute route: Home > Canada Road > Whiskey Hill > Sand Hill Road
• Commute vehicle: Giant Twist Freedom DX electric bike (more on this in a later post)
• Weather: just about perfect: cloudy and low 70s on the way in, sunny and mid-70s on the way back
• Number of bikers I passed: 2
• Number of bikers who passed me on their non-electric road bikes: 5
• To the bikers who politely passed me: keep riding -- you are inspirational!
• Must get my RPMs up   :-)
  
• Number of joggers who passed me: 0, thankfully
• Muscles that are most sore: thighs, calves, butt, and my right arm (from dragging my beast of a bike up the stairs at work)
• Calories burned: 1,354 says this calculator
• Primary motivation: get in shape
• Other motivations: see cool sights, reduce carbon footprint (though given my trusty Prius gets nearly 55 mpg on the trip to/from work, this is pretty marginal)
  

Speaking of cool sights, here are some I saw today:

• A black limo following an older Indian gentleman on his bike (a foreign dignitary? a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with a backup crew?)
• A house right on the banks of the Crystal Spring reservoir -- wonder who lives there?
• The Pulgas Water Temple
• Various entrances to Filoli
• A horse park
  

Strangely, they're closing Canada Road this Thurs, Fri and Monday, so I'm going to try and bike in Tuesday and Wednesday. Stay tuned for more on the bike commute saga. And on the new job.

Ciao for now, must go nurse my legs. :-)

Bowling

We've had the kids in our church summer camp. They gave the kids a day off today, so this feels like our first real day of summer vacation. We enjoyed it by... (wait for it)... taking the kids bowling.

We thought by going first thing in the morning would help us avoid the crowds. So wrong. We barely got a lane even though we got there maybe 20 minutes after the alleys opened up. About half the lanes were occupied by what looked like a senior citizen's competitive bowling league.

Everyone in the family bowled. Let me just say that our two games took over two hours since it takes a while when the ball is about a third of certain bowlers' body weight. When you are rolling the ball at 1.5 mph, it takesa a long time to get to the pins... :-)

But everyone had a good time -- and Colin even broke 100.

All in all, not a bad way to start off a 4th of July weekend. Bowling does feel somehow quintessentially American.

Political science discussion on the way home

Actual conversation we had in the car on the way home about why there are only 4 days of day camp this week (instead of the typical 5).


Mom: We're celebrating July 4th this week, so we get Friday off. Who did America win independence from?

Katye (enthusiastically):  France! No, Boston!

Image via Wikipedia

Colin (hedging his bets): Great Britain. Or maybe slavery.

Mom: Right. America was a British colony.


Katye: What's a colony?


Cameron (must participate even if I have no idea what's happening): Is Colin a colony?

Case study in how not to do marketing

Image via Wikipedia

So I've been toying with the idea of getting an electric bike. These are all the rage in China, which makes perfect sense. But it'd be great for me on the short trips to the grocery where the thought of getting up and down the hill with groceries puts me right into the car (yes, I'm pathetic that way).

But that's not the point of this article; instead, this is a case study in what happens when you haven't thought your marketing all the way through to the point of sale.

I say all this, by the way, as a Best Buy shareholder. Sigh. Anyway, here's the good, bad, and the ugly.

• The good: Articles about Best Buy carrying electric bikes surface in the blogosphere (see example article below). Good way to leverage social media to build awareness.
• Still good: My local store puts up a banner visible from US-101 proclaiming, "Electric bikes are here, come in for a test ride!". Again, good: a direct, clear call to action in a place where lots of people will see it, including thousands of people stuck in commute-time traffic. Perfect target market.
• Here's where it goes from bad to comically worse:
  
• Attempt 1 to test ride a bike: Two weeks after the banner went up, I walk into the store for a test ride. Some of the bikes they are supposed to carry are not even on the floor; two models are in boxes. No one in the store knows when they are coming out of the boxes or when the rest of the models are arriving. Test ride? Nope, not sure when you can do that either. FAIL.
• Attempt 2 to test ride a bike: Two weeks later, I call the store. They say, "nope, still not on out of the boxes -- should be good to go this weekend". Remember, at this point, the store has a freeway-visible banner up for at least a month with that precise call-to-action emblazoned on it. FAIL.
  
• Attempt 3 to test ride a bike: Two weeks after Attempt 2, I drop by the store. Sure enough, the bikes (and the Segway) are on the floor out of the boxes. After asking a half dozen blue shirts for a test ride, I'm finally directed to the Appliances team. The Appliance guy makes a call, and says, "yup, it's what I suspected. We only have one guy who can help with test rides, and he's in once a week on Fridays. Please come back then." FAIL.

Why generate the awareness and then the leads when you can't deliver on the call-to-action? Looks like the bike-enthusiast bloggers who were dismissive about Best Buy being in this business at all were right.

p.s. Digging this Zemanta add-on, which I blogged about earlier. Definitely saves a lot of back-and-forth with other browser windows.

Related articles by Zemanta

• In China, Bicycles Are Back - But Now They're Battery Powered (time.com)
• Best Buy to Sell Brammo Bikes (shoppingblog.com)
• Best Buy Will Start Selling Electric Bikes (keetsa.com)

Recommended Firefox extensions

I have the following confession: it's hard to write down paragraph-sized blog thoughts when it's so much easier to post word and sentence-sized thoughts via Twitter and Facebook. Pathetic but true.

Image via Wikipedia

Anyway, to buck the trend, I'm here to recommend a few extensions: three for folks who run Firefox on a few different machines (e.g., work, home, in a virtual machine) and one for the dwindling numbers who still blog (though also good for the increasing number of Gmail users).

First an aside about Firefox. I've definitely flirted with a few other browsers in the past 3 months (Safari, Chrome, and Opera) -- primarily for speed. The new Javascript engines in Chrome and Safari are super fast, and you can definitely tell in everyday browsing. But Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is pretty fast too and also offers the killer feature of supporting a wide variety of extensions. So until Chrome or Safari create a rich ecosystem of must-have extensions, I'll always have Firefox on my machine.

OK, onto the extension recommendations. First, for the nomadic Firefox users:

• Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) synchronizes bookmarks (and saved passwords, though I don't use that feature -- see below for why) across IE and Firefox. It mostly just works, though does insist on alphabetizing the contents of your Bookmark Bar which I found somewhat annoying. I use separate work and a home profiles to keep a separate set of bookmarks. For those into the teams behind the features, Xmarks was cofounded by Mitch Kapor, the guy who built Lotus 1-2-3 and was the founding Chair of Mozilla (the fine folks who build Firefox, Thunderbird and more).
• LastPass stores your username, passwords, and profiles (for filling out those pesky forms) "in the cloud" and features browser plug-ins for both Firefox and IE which will leap into action and offer to fill out your password when you hit a site that needs one. When I was on Windows, I used something called Roboform which did the same thing -- but Roboform didn't have a Mac version when I converted. So I gave LastPass a whirl, and it's generally the first plug-in I donwload after I install a fresh version of Firefox. (Try 1Password if you are addicted to Safari and don't need something that works across platforms and browsers.)
• FEBE does for Firefox extensions, themes and preferences what Lastpass does for passwords. It allows you to back them up and import them. Super handy if you find yourself installing Firefox on lots of different machines and dread the task of downloading all those extensions into your brand-new Firefox installations. It supports saving your stash-o-goodies on Box.net for storage in the cloud.

Image via Wikipedia

Finally, here's a recommendation for bloggers or Gmail'ers who want to create fancy email messages. Zemanta is a plugin that will automatically recommend tags, links, pictures, and other resources for your blog posts or email messages as you are typing them. Some might find this a little big brother-ish, but I find it super useful. It might even get me to blog more.

As I've been typing this entry, for example, it's offered to insert links for Mozilla, Mitch Kapor, Foxmarks, Opera, Xmarks, and more. In other words, I didn't have to insert the links manually.

It's also offered to insert a list of relevant tags on ths blog post (not as relevant to me, since this mostly just a personal blog).

And it's recommended a set of images to insert such as pictures of Mitch Kapor and Jon Stephenson von Tezchner, the cofounder of Opera, the Firefox and Opera and Foxmarks and Facebook logos), and so on. When you drag-and-drop them into your post, it automatically inserts the images as well as the reference links below the images. Genius!

Beatboxing flute player on NPR

I've been watching this guy's eye-popping YouTube videos for a while. Greg Pattillo, the "beatboxing flute player" was interviewed on NPR recently.

I'm sure most of you have seen this given that his Inspector Gadget video has been watched nearly 18 million (!) times. But if you haven't, and especially for all my flute-playing friends out there, you have got to see this.



Subscribe to his YouTube channel for more beat boxing, flute playing goodness. Especially if you're also a Mario Brothers fan, because then you'll see his Mario Brothers theme performance too.