The Iron Ring ceremony for graduating engineers to be obligated into the profession was held this past weekend on March 29. The day started out with an ethics workshop put on by APEGGA in the morning, a rather excellent lunch and somewhat entertaining speaker (more for method of deliver than content) and then the ceremony. The ceremony is meant to be closed to the public so I’m not going to divulge details here. Anyhow, we all left with smiles on our faces:

We then cruised around downtown and went for dinner at the creperie. Following that a few EngPhys dealt with a robbery while the others proceeded to meet most of the addicts on Jasper. I was almost certain that my library book was stolen from the car and would have to pay a fine but the cops got it back. The evening wore on with a lengthly poker game and philosophical debate regarding whether or not it’s a valid system that we have created where the most effective means to getting good grades in your education are not the most conducive to learning material well.

We all decided that our education system has created test writing machines out of us, that we’re all very well adapted by this stage in our careers to demonstrating rapidly and with loose accuracy significant amounts information under relatively high stress conditions. In addition to the skills that were developed, we noted a few lacking areas contasting them. The retention level of such a situation is deemed to be low. This was attributed in part to the reality of gaining a grade at the end of a course and not being required to retain the information. Additionally however the examination style that follows the period of learning is one that doesn’t demand intimacy with the source material so long as it can be retrieved swiftly and with accuracy. Coming from the African education system Ayo suggested that his experience was even more that way and that in reality there was never any thinking required in the course of his secondary education. While the room was full of people who have successfully managed (very successfully, and in a few cases the most successfully) to develop skills to operate within the current education system, we unanimously identified that it was a bit scary. Upon departure from an academic institution the fact that regurgitation was smiled upon is not likely to benefit us in the long run. The ability to take in information at reproduce it in various forms does not aim careers favorably towards innovation and generally positive contribution to society.

Is there a cooling off period following graduation that is required so that we as humans can return a bit more towards mainstream life? I think so, but I’m also aware of the fact that the best way to reform bits and pieces of one’s mind is to stretch it a bit far in one direction and then let it slide back a ways, inevitably it will be shaped a bit by being drawn in that direction. I think to my own experience identifying myself on the political spectrum. Being drawn heavily in one direction under a certain experience can lead me a bit far afield, but allowing time to season that experience and come back to a bit more of a mainstream position leaves me with a better understanding of things and where I actually do find myself. Hopefully having been stretched over the course of the previous four years into a significant amount of information processing as well as priority management will shape a more efficient and balanced mind.

Six nights of accommodation for the Tour this summer remain unconfirmed. Would you please join in praying that the leads that are currently established would follow through and that the location in upstate New York would be sorted out. It would be a great relief to the organizers if all of these locations could be sewn up in the next weeks.

1. Dinosaur, CO – local campground
2. Fraser, CO – YMCA park
3. Wray, CO – at local park and local pool
4. Fremont, NE – Military Memorial park
5. Woodstock, IL – High School in town
6. Albion, NY or Batavia, NY – still open, no leads

In another line of prayer, there are currently numerous riders who anticipate participating this summer who are dealing with injuries. Some of them are frustrating inconveniences like broken hands that aren’t likely to impact riders’ success this summer but some other riders are dealing with knee trouble and other cycling related problems. The health and strength of all members of this summer’s itinerant community will make a big impact on the extent to which those weeks will be so much more of a blessing than a chore.

Video Log #2

Video Log #3 – 1 minute later..

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Video Log #1

It took a few months of contemplation as to whether or not I was actually going to shell out for another bike seat. I have a full season on my current seat which is a Profile Design Tri-Stryke. After looking around online I figured that I have put it through about 30-40% of it’s lifespan because it’s neoprene and foam. I do quite enjoy the deat and it gives me no trouble but I really do prefer to ride aero with that seat rather than sit up tall. With no aero-position riding planned for this summer (see this blog entry about changing handlebars) I figured that I’d save that seat for what it was meant for. I went for a Brooks B-17 which isn’t the easiest seat to get your hands on when you live in Edmonton but I did eventually get on the “notification list” for when the new stock arrived.

I’ve got extra rails mounted behind the seat so that I can attach bottle cages to it. That’ll allow me to carry a total of three water bottles including the one frame cage. I’ve been doing 2 bottles and a third bottle filled with tools for the past 2 seasons. I’ll have a bike bag for my handlebars this summer though so the tools can be moved and I can liberate that extra cage.

The other thing I’ve solved is a tent. The one I’ve got kicking around works great so long as it’s not raining. When you’re planning 64 consecutive tent nights you can’t really expect none of them to be wet. I found a huge 1 man tent on the MEC gear listing that should solve that problem (Columbia Frosty Ridge II). It fits the bill on a number of accounts.

• 8.5 feet long from tip to tail.
• Super ventilated for hot nights
• Vestibule for my shoes
• Enough room alongside myself to keep a bunch of junk.

I guess the photos are pretty self-explanatory. I couldn’t put any of the seventeen stakes (why make a tent that’s only 4.5 pounds yet has 17 stakes?) in the floor so I used duct-tape. It’s not quite filled out all the way when it’s not stretched out with pegs but It’s pretty close in the photos.

A SeatoSea promo video is online. If you’ve come across my website and don’t have a ton of the background regarding what this whole bike ride that I’m talking about is all about here’s a solid 5 minute introduction.

One of the things that I have been very careful about communicating is that all of the money they donate goes towards the cause and none of it is to support us cyclists, who are relying on corporate sponsorship or themselves/ourselves to meet those costs.

Our development manager, Al Vander Hart, passed along a prayer request this evening. Al has been working with contacts at a rather large franchise company for a major corporate sponsorship of our tour. The process, which has been going on for literally months, faces a significant crossroads tomorrow (Friday, March 7) as executives review the proposal with a view to making a decision.

Would you please join me/us in prayer tonight and tomorrow asking that God will open a way for our proposal to find favor with this national,
well-known organization? It means money towards the cause but it also means momentum in that effort.

The weekend rolled by and I did swing through the bike shop to finally finish the conversion project that began back in November. My bike was set up for triathlon racing and wasn’t particularly conducive to the kind of riding I’m anticipating this summer. It started with a handlebars and brakes swap and is now almost complete with my aquisition of a larger cassette for the rear gears. I was looking for a set of gears that was more conducive to climbing hills and initially couldn’t find what I wanted but now have got some. My current racing cassette will be moving over to my new racing wheels which came sans-cassette. This cassette will likely stay on this bike indefinitely once it gets on there (I still need to get my hands on a cassette wrench to finish this project, and at this rate it should happen by mid may)

While at the bike shop I decided to finally get the bike computer I had decided upon but hadn’t yet bought. It’s got wireless capability for both speed and cadence which were the two basic things I wanted. It’s also got the potential to record heart-rate data but my cat-eye transmitter didn’t work the first time I tried it. I may have to try my ciclo-sport transmitter later and read the owners manual again, I’m pretty sure that both of them will theoretically work if I fiddle with them a bit. What is an engineering physics degree worth if I can’t do something like that right?

So I recorded an entire workout of cadence for the first time in my life which was fun, I averaged between 93 and 96 if I randomly looked down to see what I was at. The average for the whole ride was 88 which includes some horsing around we did on the rollers standing and such which drops you cadence way down. I maxed out at 115 without wiping out off the machine which is no small achievement in my mind. I’d like to see if I can actually do 140 on the road, I’ve heard people say it’s possible. I don’t know though. I know for a fact I can do 126 as I’ve measured that with timing myself on the fixie while on the velodrome